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There are three isotopes of silicon. They have mass numbers of 28, 29 and 30. The average atomic mass of silicon is 28.086amu. What does this say about the relative abundances of the three isotopes?

Answer 1

Mateo Aguilar

This means that the isotope of silicon with a mass number of 28 is by far the most common of these three isotopes.

The abundance of Si-28 is 92.23%. Si-29 is 4.68% and Si-30 is 3.09%.

Because most Si atoms have a mass of 28 amu, the average mass of all silicon atoms is very close to 28.

Here is a video which summarizes how to calculate average atomic mass from data about mass and relative abundance.

Video from: Noel Pauller

Hope this helps!

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Answer 2

Naomi Aronson

The relative abundances of the isotopes with mass numbers 28, 29, and 30 are roughly 92.23%, 4.67%, and 3.1%, respectively.

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Answer from HIX Tutor

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.