Relative atomic mass (symbol: Ar) is a dimensionless physical quantity, the ratio of the average mass of atoms of an element (from a given source) to 1/12 of the mass of an atom of carbon-12 (known as the unified atomic mass unit). The term is usually used, without further qualification, to refer to the standard atomic weights published at regular intervals by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and which are intended to be applicable to normal laboratory materials. These standard atomic weights are reprinted in a wide variety of textbooks, commercial catalogues, wallcharts etc., and in the table below.
The term "atomic weight" (of the element) is also used to describe this physical quantity, and is synonymous with it. However, its continued use has attracted considerable controversy since at least the 1960s (see below).
Read more about Relative Atomic Mass: Definition, Naming Controversy, Determination of Atomic Weight, Periodic Table With Atomic Weights
Famous quotes containing the words relative, atomic and/or mass:
“Three elements go to make up an idea. The first is its intrinsic quality as a feeling. The second is the energy with which it affects other ideas, an energy which is infinite in the here-and-nowness of immediate sensation, finite and relative in the recency of the past. The third element is the tendency of an idea to bring along other ideas with it.”
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“No atomic physicist has to worry, people will always want to kill other people on a mass scale. Sure, he’s got the fridge full of sausages and spring water.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
“They’re semiotic phantoms, bits of deep cultural imagery that have split off and taken on a life of their own, like those Jules Verne airships that those old Kansas farmers were always seeing.... Semiotic ghosts. Fragments of the Mass Dream, whirling past in the wind of my passage.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)