Why does carbon 12 have a whole number mass?
It is the sum of protons and neutrons in a nucleus ofd. Carbon -12 has a whole number mass because it has 6 protons and 6 neutrons. Because of this, carbon -12 was assigned a mass of exactly 12.00 and set as a standard to which all masses of other isotopes are compared to.Click to…
It is the sum of protons and neutrons in a nucleus ofd. Carbon -12 has a whole number mass because it has 6 protons and 6 neutrons. Because of this, carbon -12 was assigned a mass of exactly 12.00 and set as a standard to which all masses of other isotopes are compared to.Click to see full answer. Considering this, why is the atomic mass of carbon 12?Carbon 12 was chosen because the chemical atomic weights based on C12 are almost identical to the chemical atomic weights based on the natural mix of oxygen.Similarly, why are the atomic masses not whole numbers? Atomic mass is never an integer number for several reasons: The atomic mass reported on a periodic table is the weighted average of all the naturally occuring isotopes. Being an average it would be most unlikely to be a whole number. The mass of an individual atom in atomic mass units is the mass relative to carbon-12. Considering this, what is the mass of a carbon 12 atom? Atomic mass, the quantity of matter contained in an atom of an element. It is expressed as a multiple of one-twelfth the mass of the carbon-12 atom, 1.992646547 × 10−23 gram, which is assigned an atomic mass of 12 units. In this scale 1 atomic mass unit (amu) corresponds to 1.660539040 × 10−24 gram.What does the symbol carbon 12 mean?Wiktionary. carbon-12(Noun) The most abundant of the two stable isotopes of carbon, , having six protons and six neutrons; it is the standard for atomic weight and is used to define the mole.
