Why do some elements have decimals in their mass number?
Though individual atoms always have an integer number of atomic mass units, the atomic mass on the periodic table is stated as a decimal number because it is an average of the various isotopes of an element.Click to see full answer. Similarly, why are the atomic masses of elements not whole numbers?Atomic mass is never…
Though individual atoms always have an integer number of atomic mass units, the atomic mass on the periodic table is stated as a decimal number because it is an average of the various isotopes of an element.Click to see full answer. Similarly, why are the atomic masses of elements 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.Similarly, how do you find the mass number of an element? For any given isotope, the sum of the numbers of protons and neutrons in the nucleus is called the mass number. This is because each proton and each neutron weigh one atomic mass unit (amu). By adding together the number of protons and neutrons and multiplying by 1 amu, you can calculate the mass of the atom. Considering this, what does the decimal number in an element key represent? increase by one for each element as you move left to right across a period.What is the mass on the periodic table?The atomic mass of an element is the average mass of the atoms of an element measured in atomic mass unit (amu, also known as daltons, D). The atomic mass is a weighted average of all of the isotopes of that element, in which the mass of each isotope is multiplied by the abundance of that particular isotope.
