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The distances relevant to the physics expressed in SI units are naturally on the order of , while expressed in atomic units distances are on the order of (one Bohr radius, the atomic unit of length). An additional benefit of expressing quantities using atomic units is that their values calculated and reported in atomic units do ...
While the values of the physical constants are independent of the system of units in use, each uncertainty as stated reflects our lack of knowledge of the corresponding value as expressed in SI units, and is strongly dependent on how those units are defined. For example, the atomic mass constant is exactly known when expressed using the dalton ...
atomic mass number: unitless acceleration: meter per second squared (m/s 2) magnetic flux density also called the magnetic field density or magnetic induction tesla (T), or equivalently, weber per square meter (Wb/m 2) capacitance: farad (F) heat capacity: joule per kelvin (J⋅K −1)
Section 3.8 introduces atomic units and gives a table of atomic units of various physical quantities and the conversion factor to the SI units. Section 7.3(v) gives a concise but clear tutorial on practical use of atomic units, in particular how to understand equations "written in atomic units".
In physics, natural unit systems are measurement systems for which selected physical constants have been set to 1 through nondimensionalization of physical units.For example, the speed of light c may be set to 1, and it may then be omitted, equating mass and energy directly E = m rather than using c as a conversion factor in the typical mass–energy equivalence equation E = mc 2.
The atomic units have been chosen to use several constants relating to the electron: the electron mass, the elementary charge, the Coulomb constant and the reduced Planck constant. The unit of energy in this system is the total energy of the electron in the Bohr atom and called the Hartree energy. The unit of length is the Bohr radius.
A given atom has an atomic mass approximately equal (within 1%) to its mass number times the atomic mass unit (for example the mass of a nitrogen-14 is roughly 14 Da), but this number will not be exactly an integer except (by definition) in the case of carbon-12. [67] The heaviest stable atom is lead-208, [59] with a mass of 207.976 6521 Da. [68]
In 1803 John Dalton proposed to use the (still unknown) atomic mass of the lightest atom, hydrogen, as the natural unit of atomic mass. This was the basis of the atomic weight scale. [12] For technical reasons, in 1898, chemist Wilhelm Ostwald and others proposed to redefine the unit of atomic mass as 1 / 16 the mass of an oxygen atom. [13]