Building Australia's first mass spectrometer: Recognising the achievements of J. Roger Bird

Following the birth of the field of mass spectrometry at the end of World War I, it was several decades before the first commercial mass spectrometers became available. In the interim, many physicists interested in the nature of matter, and their application to studies in nuclear physics, constructed their own. A young physics postgraduate student, John Roger Bird, was the first to do so in Australia. This article describes his efforts and achievements, featuring technical blueprints, photographs of the instruments and early data, in long overdue recognition of Bird's work at the University of Melbourne.