3 ms·
Yeah, one Dalton = one neutron or one proton [0], so it's a convenient unit if you're literally adding up atomic weights to find the weight of a single molecule
by dmurray 6y ago
Yeah, one Dalton = one neutron or one proton [0], so it's a convenient unit if you're literally adding up atomic weights to find the weight of a single molecule.
[0] This is true for chemists, but not for physicists, who pay more attention to the mass defect rounding error.
- contravariant 6y agoTo expand on that, for physicists Carbon-12 is exactly 12 daltons also denoted 12 Da or 12 u. All other isotopes deviate slightly from a whole number of daltons. If I recall correctly the number of nucleons minus the daltons continues to decrease until you get to iron, which has the lowest nuclear binding energy, after which it continues to increase again (although there's some variation between isotopes so this is more of a general trend).
- dmurray 6y agoAnd that's why you can have nuclear power either from combining really small atoms (fusion) or splitting big ones (fission) but nobody would propose a nuclear reactor that runs on iron?