Atomic mass units

The atomic mass unit (AMU) is defined as the twelfth part of the mass of a C$_{12}$ atom. Its value (in SI units, CODATA value) is

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Hence, it is approximately equal to the mass of a proton. Elements are assigned masses in these units which are not integer numbers. This is because neutrons and protons have slightly different masses, because nuclear binding forces cause the total mass of a nucleus to be less than that of the sum of its constituents, and, mainly, because of the appearance of natural isotopes. Thus, Potassium has a mass of 39.10 mainly because of natural KFailed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle ^{40}} isotopes.

Here is a list of masses of elements and compounds in atomic mass units:

Compound/element	mass in amu
Ar	39.95
Xe	131.29
CO2	44.01
H2O (water)	18.02
N2	28.01