Basically, I put the sample in a giant magnet (it's big and shiny and SO COOL!) and the magnetic field messes around with the nuclei of the atoms in the sample. Then the magnet is turned off and the nuclei go back to a lower energy level. How fast they do this changes based on what the atoms are connected to in the structure.
It gives a signal that shows up in different places, and based on where the peaks show up, I can figure out the structure of my compound. In this case, if my product has formed I get a boron peak around nine, when the starting material peak is around twenty. I just got a HUGE peak at nine, which means my reaction very definitely worked. :p
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branchandroot
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Date: 2007-01-13 02:49 am (UTC)Basically, I put the sample in a giant magnet (it's big and shiny and SO COOL!) and the magnetic field messes around with the nuclei of the atoms in the sample. Then the magnet is turned off and the nuclei go back to a lower energy level. How fast they do this changes based on what the atoms are connected to in the structure.
It gives a signal that shows up in different places, and based on where the peaks show up, I can figure out the structure of my compound. In this case, if my product has formed I get a boron peak around nine, when the starting material peak is around twenty. I just got a HUGE peak at nine, which means my reaction very definitely worked. :p