Standard atomic weight real life substances—for example, in pharmaceuticals and scientific research. Atomic weights are specific to single sources and samples of an element, such as the atomic weight of carbon in a particular bone from a particular archeological site. Standard atomic weight generalizes such values to the "range of atomic weights" which a chemist might expect to derive from many random samples from Earth. This range is the cause of the "interval notation" in some standard atomic weight values. Out of the 118 known chemical elements, 84 are stable and have this Earth-environment based value. Typically, such a value is, for example
Standard atomic weight publishes "abridged" values (up to five digits per number only), and for the twelve interval values, "conventional" values (single number values). Symbol "A" is a relative atomic mass, for example from a specific sample. To be specific, the standard atomic weight can be noted as , where (E) is the element symbol. The abridged atomic weight, also published by CIAAW, is derived from the standard atomic weight reducing the numbers to five digits (five significant figures). The name does not say 'rounded'. Interval borders are rounded "downwards" for the first (lowmost) border, and "upwards" for the "upward" (upmost) border. This