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The awful problem that chemists use "standard atomic weight" yet refer to it as "atomic weight."
It isn't a lot of help when the usual term for a thing is wrong by reason of slang. What is seen in interval notation on periodic tables is the STANDARD atomic weight. That is the value of atomic weight you expect from many samples on Earth, and hence the interval! The atomic weight of a SINGLE sample in a lab can be determined far more accurately with a mass spectrograph, even though usually more than one isotope is being evaluated, and their weighted sum used. That atomic weight can differentiate between samples, using stable isotope ratios. For example, it is differences in atomic weights of carbon from natural testosterone vs. artificial testosterone (which has a carbon atomic weight that looks like a plant) that allows doping commissions to tell if testosterone is taken artificially. Yet all these values are within the "standard atomic weight" for carbon seen on the average periodic table. That is why the two terms are different.
The term "relative atomic mass" is the same as "atomic weight". It is NOT the same as "standard atomic weight." That latter term would need to be "standard relative atomic mass" which is so long it is rarely seen. This is one reason that "atomic weight" continues to hang on. SBHarris03:30, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
"This range is the cause of the interval notation in some standard atomic weight values": not exactly so. in determining s.a.w, there is a difference between source and sample. Only when values vary between sources, an interval maight be given. Otherwise (no systematic diff between sources), a single value &with uncertainty is given. -DePiep (talk) 15:31, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Changes published in 2018
Changes to the standard atomic weights of 14 chemical elements have been recommended recently ([1]), this should be incorporated into the article and values be updated accordingly. Szaszicska (talk) 21:26, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
