![cover image](https://wikiwandv2-19431.kxcdn.com/_next/image?url=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a9/Cyclotron_motion.jpg/640px-Cyclotron_motion.jpg&w=640&q=50)
Mass-to-charge ratio
Physical quantity of interest in chemistry and electrodynamics / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about Charge-to-mass ratio?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
The mass-to-charge ratio (m/Q) is a physical quantity relating the mass (quantity of matter) and the electric charge of a given particle, expressed in units of kilograms per coulomb (kg/C). It is most widely used in the electrodynamics of charged particles, e.g. in electron optics and ion optics.
![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a9/Cyclotron_motion.jpg/640px-Cyclotron_motion.jpg)
It appears in the scientific fields of electron microscopy, cathode ray tubes, accelerator physics, nuclear physics, Auger electron spectroscopy, cosmology and mass spectrometry.[1] The importance of the mass-to-charge ratio, according to classical electrodynamics, is that two particles with the same mass-to-charge ratio move in the same path in a vacuum, when subjected to the same electric and magnetic fields.
Some disciplines use the charge-to-mass ratio (Q/m) instead, which is the multiplicative inverse of the mass-to-charge ratio. The CODATA recommended value for an electron is Q/m = −1.75882000838(55)×1011 C⋅kg−1.[2]