The weights, they are a-changin'. What we're taught in school science classes is a streamlined version of a muddier and more complicated reality, and it's no different with something as iconic as the periodic table of elements. This week the venerable chart's overseers decided to fiddle with the atomic weights of 10 elements, changing their values from a single set number to a range of numbers, which is messier but more accurately resembles the messy real world.
The reason for the change is that atomic weights are not always as concrete as most general-chemistry students are taught, according to the University of Calgary, which made the announcement, and the snappily named International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry's Commission on Isotopic Abundances and Atomic Weights, which oversees such weighty matters. [CNET]
