How does theory explain the mass defect?

Question

If protons and electrons experience mass defect in atomic structures than the size and mass of the atomic elements in the peirodic table are not the same mass. Hence, Electron mass is not constant depending on which structures its trapped in?So how is mass structure calculated?

Answer 1

Browse these websites:
www.eas.asu.edu/~holbert/eee460/massdefect.html
antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/atoms/slides/sld019.htm
www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Mass%20defect.

Answer 2

I am not sure exactly what you mean by "mass defect". In chemistry, "mass defect" refers to the difference in mass between the mass of an atom and the mass of its constituent particles (protons and neutrons). Usually electrons are excluded from the calculation because, as a previous poster suggested, they have a much smaller mass than protons and neutrons. This mass defect corresponds to energy (E = mc^2) that binds the particles in the nucleus together.

Answer 3

Do you know how much an electron weighs? Not very much at all - the "mass defect" is not significant enough to affect the molar mass of an element.