This review describes some mathematical concepts for the evaluation of mass spectra. Although this paper review can not be comprehensive (this would require a book), it has a astounding collection of tools which can be used for deeper understanding and interpretation of mass spectra. This list (Table 1) really hits the bull's eye for those people who want to improve their knowledge about modern tools for mass spectrometry research. Imagine all these tools in one program, this would be a mass-spec swiss army knife (or you could call it a eierlegende Wollmilchsau).