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Isotope word question clarification
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[QUOTE="Charles Link, post: 6062097, member: 583509"] To a good approximation, the atomic mass of an atom (which includes any isotope of that atom) can be estimated by taking the mass of a proton and multiplying by the number of protons, and adding to this the mass of a neutron multiplied by the number of neutrons. Or similarly, just count the number of protons and neutrons and multiply by ## 1.67 \cdot 10^{-27} \, kg ##, because the mass of the proton and neutron are quite similar. ## \\ ## Because the particles (protons and neutrons) in the atom are in a state of lower energy than they are as free particles, the mass of the atom experiences a loss of mass (it's not a large amount, but it's not zero), as the particles come together to form an atom. ## \\ ## Edit: The atomic mass of the carbon 12 atom is defined as 12. Thereby, depending on what kind of binding energy the atom has, the individual particles in an atom could on average have more or less binding energy than they do in the ## C^{12} ## atom. (According to the answer that was provided, the question is referring to how the masses were determined in the second paragraph, and the info of ## C^{12} ## is actually extraneous ).## \\ ## With this info, you should be able to select the correct answer. ## \\ ## See also: [URL]https://physics.nist.gov/cgi-bin/Compositions/stand_alone.pl[/URL] [/QUOTE]
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