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Offline tortoise

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Calculate relative mass
« on: October 17, 2007, 11:35:12 AM »
A sample of 6.68 g of calcium combines exactly with 6.33g of fluorine, forming calcium fluoride, CaF2. Find the relative masses of the atoms of calcium and fluorine. Check your  answer  using  a  table  of  atomic weights.  If  the  formula were not known, could you still do this calculation?

- Which calculations do I have to do? I don't understand the term "relative mass" clearly. Does it the same as "atomic mass"?
- If  the  formula (ie CaF2?) were not known, we could still do the calculations, because we could find the formula and then continue as above.. right? or do we have another way?

Offline AWK

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Re: Calculate relative mass
« Reply #1 on: October 17, 2007, 12:11:59 PM »
Quote
A sample of 6.68 g of calcium combines exactly with 6.33g of fluorine, forming calcium fluoride, CaF2.
From these data you can calculate MCa:MF as 6.68:3.165. As you know, atomic masses of elements very often may be a whole numbers. Multiplying these number in above ratio 2.106:1
in turns by whole numbers you can get (multiplying by 9) 18.95: 1 ~19:9 (these numbers may be accepted as relative masses of both elements. But looking at  the periodic table you can find that a proper multiplier is 19 giving 40:19 (both numbers are in fact atomic masses of Ca and F, respectively)
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