What r the benefits of using Atomic Mass Units (amu) rather than actual masses when studying atoms?
AMU’s have a specific absolute value that is 1.673 X 10(-27). We can use this value for the mass of a proton or neutron at rest. A neutron is slightly heavier than the proton but this dos not occur until the forth place after the decimal in the number above. Now would you not prefer to work with who numbers rather than 10(-27). In addition to the ease of operations ther is also the periodic table masses of the average atomic weight which considers all the isotopes of an element and their percentage of the whole. The atomic mass given on the periodic table is either the AMU mass of a single atom, or the gram mass of a mole of atoms. We can thank Mr. Avogadro for this convenience.
