Topic summary
Atomic weights
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Relative atomic mass.
Current definition
The definition deliberately specifies "An atomic weight ...", as an element will have different relative atomic masses depending on the source. For example, boron from Turkey has a lower relative atomic mass than boron from California, because of its different isotopic composition. Nevertheless, given the cost and difficulty of isotope analysis, it is common practice to instead substitute the tabulated values of standard atomic weights, which are ubiquitous in chemical laboratories and which are revised biennially by the IUPAC's Commission on Isotopic Abundances and Atomic Weights (CIAAW).