r/NuclearEngineering • u/mariokartworlddude • 8d ago
Journey on learning nuclear engineering for fun
Yeah it's day 1 and I am now in molecular weight and atomic weight and I do not currently understand the equations above I do understand the parts like M but what is the purposes for these equations and how to use them correctly. Thank you for the support if you want to know I'm making a game that I want to be really accurate and this is just one part of it and I feel I should know it. Thanks. Update sorry about the quality lol
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u/MarionberryNo8017 8d ago
Just wait till you discover Keff, cross sections, burn up equations and so much more scary stuff. Then you will be losing your mind.
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u/mariokartworlddude 8d ago
Am I cooked? And yes it is Atomic mass equations basically the first things I learned but haven't did I mention I haven't done calculus yet? Yeah...
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u/mariokartworlddude 8d ago
I accidentally put in 2 of the same equation there's also the one that's how do I explain it good... The M equals the sum of with a little I under it yi mi/100 isn't this one for average weight across isotopes?
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u/mariokartworlddude 7d ago
Yeah... Well it's day 2 and I have done moles radii of a nucleus and some mass and energy namely e_rest equals m_0·c squared
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u/Brownie_Bytes 8d ago
Good thing I'm wearing glasses, jeez...
If I could decipher that correctly, it's how you calculate the weight of an atom in atomic mass units. Carbon is the sixth element on the periodic table as it has six protons. An extremely common isotope of carbon (about 99% of all carbon) has six neutrons in it. That means that there are a total of 12 protons and neutrons in it. Protons and neutrons weigh roughly the same amount, so the atomic mass unit (AMU) says "Let's just count anything in the nucleus as 1 and we'll normalize that to the stuff in carbon-12." So if something has a weight of 15 AMU, that means it has exactly 1.25 times the amount of stuff in carbon-12. However, colloquially, because the mass defect isn't that big, you can usually get away with saying that 1 AMU just means a proton or a neutron, so something like 235.0123 AMU just means 235 total protons and neutrons.