Molecular mass Molecular mass Relative molecular mass or molecular weight is the mass of a molecule. It is calculated as the sum of the relative atomic masses of each constituent element multiplied by the number of atoms of that element in the molecular formula. The molecular mass of small to medium size molecules, measured by mass spectrometry, determines stoichiometry. For large molecules such as proteins, methods based on viscosity and light-scattering can be used to determine molecular mass when crystallographic data are not available. Both atomic and molecular masses are usually obtained relative to the mass of the isotope C (carbon 12),
Atomic mass called the relative isotopic mass (see section below). Thus, the atomic mass of a carbon-12 atom is 12 u or 12 daltons (Da), but the relative isotopic mass of a carbon-12 atom is simply 12. The atomic mass or relative isotopic mass refers to the mass of a single particle, and therefore is tied to a certain specific isotope of an element. The dimensionless standard atomic weight instead refers to the average (mathematical mean) of atomic mass values of a typical naturally-occurring mixture of isotopes for a sample of an element. Atomic mass values are thus commonly reported to many