Purpose: The purpose of this lab was to find the atomic mass of the new element "Candium" (or the candy M&Ms) which has three isotopes (regular M&Ms, peanut M&Ms, and pretzel M&Ms) based off of our measured mass of each isotope, the abundance of each isotope and the average of these numbers.
The average atomic mass that my group calculated was 1.4 amu. 1. The group across from us had an average atomic mass of 1.76 amu and another group near us had an average atomic mass of 1.3. These are very close to our calculated average atomic mass, but they are not identical. This is most likely because of the numerous variables that could've changed experimental results. For example, the overall abundance of each isotope could've been drastically different than ours and could've swayed results or they happened upon a batch of M&Ms that were larger/smaller in mass.
2. If we had a larger sample size of Candium, the differences between our results would've been smaller. The more samples you have, the smaller your differences will be. Although our sample sizes were large enough that our groups got extremely similar results, if it was larger our results would've been even more similar.
3. If we took a Candium isotope and massed it, it would not have the same mass that we obtained as our average atomic mass. Because our average atomic mass was an average, it is not identical to any of the isotope's average masses. Therefore, any single isotope massed on a balance would not have the same mass as the average atomic mass.4. Because of the new discovery of Candium, a periodic table square needed to be made. The atomic symbol for Candium is Cd and it's average atomic weight is 1.44 grams.
No comments:
Post a Comment