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About Atomic Radius: empircal vs. calculated

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Winga:
I wonder which atomic radius data is more precise to the real cases, the empircal one or calculated one?

Mitch:
Depends who you ask. A theorist would say the calculated one and the experimentalist would say the empirical one.

Donaldson Tan:
Empirical means "verifiable or provable by means of observation or experiment".

I will side with the experimentalist.  :1eye:

Winga:

--- Quote from: geodome on January 09, 2006, 06:51:40 AM ---Empirical means "verifiable or provable by means of observation or experiment".

I will side with the experimentalist.  :1eye:

--- End quote ---
So, what experiments did the scientists do?

alkemist:
Empirical ones.  Experimental data basically means that you measured it.  Theoretical predictions are useful when there are no ways of measuring radii experiementally, or if you want to predict the radius of an element that hasn't been discovered yet, or it has too short of a half-life.  

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