Talk:Technetium

Re Tc's atomic mass

Milton: Is it correct to write:

"It [Tc] has a standard atomic weight of 98 g•mol ⁻¹..."?

Or is 98 just the atomic mass of Tc's longest-lived isotope? —Anthony.Sebastian 19:52, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Anthony, I am just trying to work my way through all of they element articles so that the all use the same infobox template (i.e., Template:Elem_Infobox) for consistency. I don't consider myself an expert on the ins and outs of proper notation. However, NIST has this as the heading for their page on Technetium:

Atomic Data for Technetium (Tc)

Atomic Number = 43

Atomic Weight = 98.9062

In other words, although NIST lists three of the isotopes (each with their respective atomic masses), the NIST page heading uses the atomic mass of Technetium (without designating which isotope) as 98.9062 (which is technetium-99). So I have revised the article to coincide with that value and to use NIST's heading of simply Technetium.

Having said that, if you feel strongly that it should be written otherwise, please do so. I will be busy for another 4 days or so just to work my way through the rest of the elements. Milton Beychok 02:48, 23 April 2011 (UTC)