Why is carbon chosen as a base standard to calculate the mass of other elements and not any other element? Any specific reason for it? Please mention.
Answers
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Atomic mass is the total number of nucleons (protons and neutrons) in the nucleus. Carbon-12 has 6 of each.
Because some of the mass of those nucleons “disappears down the potential energy well” of the strong interaction, there is a significant variation of the mass per nucleon; also neutrons are a bit heavier than protons. So the actual mass of a given nucleus will be slightly less than the sum of the masses of its protons and neutrons; this difference varies from nucleus to nucleus, but it is never enough to throw off the interpretation of “atomic weight” as the number of nucleons.
Carbon-12 is a logical candidate for calibration of the “mean mass of a nucleon” because it has an equal number of both types, it has a fairly “average” binding energy, it is readily available, and natural carbon (on Earth) is about 99% carbon-12 (the rest is
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