Carbon-12 Weight Standard

[blak magik]

I wanted to know why carbon-12 was chosen as the atomic weight standard.

Why did they change from oxygen in the first place?

[thedarkshade]

There is always a good explanation about almost everything at Wiki:

The standard atomic weight refers to the mean relative atomic mass of an element in the local environment of the Earth's crust and atmosphere as determined by the IUPAC Commission on Atomic Weights and Isotopic Abundances.[3] These are what are included in a standard periodic table and is what is used in most bulk calculations. An uncertainty in brackets is included which often reflects natural variability in isotopic distribution rather than uncertainty in measurement.[4] For synthetic elements the isotope formed depends on the means of synthesis, so the concept of natural isotope abundance has no meaning. Therefore, for synthetic elements the total nucleon count of the most stable isotope (ie, the isotope with the longest half-life) is listed in brackets in place of the standard atomic weight. Lithium represents a unique case where the natural abundances of the isotopes have been perturbed by human activities to the point of affecting the uncertainty in its standard atomic weight, even in samples obtained from natural sources such as rivers.

 

The relative isotopic mass is the relative mass of the isotope, scaled with carbon-12 as exactly 12. No other isotopes have whole number masses due to the different mass of neutrons and protons, as well as loss/gain of mass to binding energy. However, since mass defect due to binding energy is minimal compared to the mass of a nucleon, rounding the atomic mass of an isotope tells you the total nucleon count. Neutron count can then be derived by subtracting the atomic number.

[swansont]

Wikipedia is often good, but it helps to quote the relevant section

 

"up until the 1960's chemists and physicists used two different atomic mass scales. The chemists used a scale such that the natural mixture of oxygen isotopes had an atomic mass 16, while the physicists assigned the same number 16 to the atomic mass of the most common oxygen isotope (containing eight protons and eight neutrons). However, because oxygen-17 and oxygen-18 are also present in natural oxygen this led to two different tables of atomic mass. The unified scale based on carbon-12, 12C, met the physicists' need to base the scale on a pure isotope, while being numerically close to the old chemists' scale."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_atomic_weight

 

 

A little more detail is at

http://www.sizes.com/units/atomic_mass_unit.htm

[blak magik]

Thank you very much guys, you helped a lot!!

[Dr Beardface]

thank you swansont and thank you Sonal... i mean blak magik for asking