Author Description

Errors are a common companion of all human acitvity, including work in the laboratory. Yet it is a great pity if erroneous results are produced with great effort and by using expensive instruments and demanding procedures. Therefore a book about sources of errors in high performance liquid chromatography, today's most widely used analytical method, is highly recommended. Maybe the topic is not welcomed enthusiastically but, nevertheless, it is nessecary. In conception, at least, possibe problems can be devided into two categories. "Errors" are troublesome opponents of accurate and precise results which, however, can be understood. In contrast, "pitfalls" are totally unexpected intruders and the secret behind them is difficult to discover. The worst are those which are not detected but which affect the result anyway. The book does not, nevertheless, distinguish between the two types. The reader decide how they classify them. The single topics were presented in a clearly arranged style: a brief text with a corresponding figure which should encourage reading and thinking. Chemists and laboratory assistants get numerous hints how correct and reliable results could be transposed in daily laboratory work.