Talk:Binding energy

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Binding energy

I am getting confused about what just the term "Binding Energy" means when used for atoms.

For example, if you go to Uranium-235, the table on the left says "Binding Energy: 1783870+keV". But when you click on that link you get redirected to this page which does not say what "Binding energy" means.

When I do the calculations, it seems that the Uranium-235 page is talking about nuclear binding energy plus electron binding energy. But what is "atomic binding energy" and how does it differ from "electron binding energy"? The wording makes them sound exactly the same. What's the difference between "dissembling an atom into free electrons and a nucleus" and "free[ing] electrons from their atomic orbits." ? 58.70.4.94 (talk) 12:10, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

A little slow on this, but atomic binding energy is the binding energy for atomic electrons. For a long time what we now call nuclear energy and nuclear weapons (sometimes nucular, but we won't get into that now) were atomic energy and atomic weapons. The energy from TNT explosions comes from the different binding energy for electrons in the new arrangement of atoms into molecules. In the case of fission, you need to consider the different binding energy of uranium and of the fission product nuclides. Gah4 (talk) 01:51, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Graph

What this page lacks most is a graphic of The Nuclear Binding Energy Curve--Chealer 10:10, 2004 Nov 8 (UTC)

done, and replaced the old one which was inaccurate and confusing mastodon 17:56, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

• Graph was removed. Should be replaced. Is government NASA graph and public domain. Put license as government-public domain found at NASA website.

• http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/Images/teachers/posters/elements/booklet/energy.jpg

• I do not know how to change license to reflect this and put back original graph.--68.231.217.170 15:38, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

yo,yo,yo Mr White, like where's my graph huh? it's been missing since like 2006Feldercarb (talk) 03:41, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Last statement about binding energy

I was browsing through articles and read the following, which struck me as not quite accurate: " the atomic mass of hydrogen (which is a lone proton) is 1.00794 Amu, "

First, hydrogen is not a lone proton, it is a proton plus an electron (sorry, nit-picking here) and second that atomic mass represents the weighted average mass of hydrogen based on isotopic abundance. The mass of a proton is (by definition) 1.0. This makes the statement that follows about C-12 having lost mass to binding energy meaningless, doesn't it?

COMMENT: This section should probably be re-done using grams, since amu just confuses things. An amu is actually 1/12th of a carbon ATOM, so electrons are counted there, too. If you want to use amus, you have to compare a carbon atom (12 amus) to 6 hydrogen atoms plus 6 electrons plus 6 neutrons, all in amus. That gives you nuclear packing energy and ignores the small atomic binding energy. An easier way is to just back-calculate the weight of a carbon nucleus from 12 amu minus 12 electrons, and then subtract it from the mass of 6 free protons and neutrons. Sbharris 21:35, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

If the mass of the proton is 1.0 and the atomic masses of the isotopes keeps going down up to beyond EE28Ni62, (@61.928345), then how can that happen unless we assume that some portion of that 1.0 mass value is not rest mass.WFPM (talk) 19:39, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

The mass of a free proton is 1.00727646677 u. The mass of a free neutron is 1.0086649156 u. The average mass of neutron+proton/2 in carbon 12 is 1.000 exactly minus 1/2 electron + binding energy of 1/2 carbon electron = 0.99945 u or so (we can't use 1, since that's for neutral whole carbon atoms, not nuclei). The average nucleon mass in Ni-62 is about the average of (28p+34n)/62 = 1.008038 u, from which we must subtract the binding energy per nucleon. This binding energ is nearly 8.8 MeV, which is u/931.494028 = .009447 u. So the average nucleon mass in Ni-62 is not 1.0080, but 0.99859. Surprise, stronger than carbon. As you go on past Ni-62, you see this number rise again. If it goes over 1.000 it doesn't matter, since that's just the average mass of p+n-(e/2) in C-12 not FREE p, or even p+n/2. The number it won't go over, is the average mass of the free particles that make up heavy nuclei, which is 3n + 2p/5 = 1.0081 u for nucleons. But again, don't forget to subtract the rest mass of electrons from isotope masses. And for large isotopes, their binding energy must be ADDED and (rest) mass of their electrons SUBTRACTED, to get the bare nuclear mass. SBHarris 20:49, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

So Nuclear mass values are Atomic mass values minus Electron mass (@.00054858) +?. And 61.928345 - 28 x .00054858 = 61.928345 - .01536, = 61.9123, and 61.9123/62 = .998596 okay! And for EE26Fe56 = 55.934938 - 26 x .00054858 = 55.934938 - .01426 = 55.99207, and 55.9207/56 = .998584, = .000012 difference, not much (112)/nucleon. And the total binding energy of EE28Ni62 is 28 x 1.00727646677 (28.203674) + 34 x 1.0086649156 (34.294610) = 62.498247, and 62.498247 - 61.928345 = 0.5699 x 931500000 = 530863815/62 = 8.56 mev/nucleon.But that's assuming the accumulation of everything on an individual incremental nucleon basis. If the atom were accumulating deuterons plus extra neutrons, for instance, the incremental energy accumulation values of the paired nuclides would be different as well as the total accumulated energy value.WFPM (talk) 01:20, 10 April 2011 (UTC) How do you figure it when you bombard atoms with accelerated deuterons?

The same nuclide should have the same binding energy in the ground state, and thus the same mass, no matter how it's made. Find anything different and you get the Nobel Prize. SBHarris 04:37, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

That would be true as concerning their bound energy condition. However the process of increased accumulation is involved with energy contribution values that impact upon the stability result of the process. For the real heavy elements, the nuclides have been determined to have been required to have a maximum number of excess neutrons in their constituency before combining, so that a few of them can be used to carry off the excess energy of the composite nucleus. So binding a deuteron to a nuclide would involve a lesser addition of energy to it than the binding of a proton and then a neutron, which might affect the process.WFPM (talk) 11:31, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Seems to me that you could consider the nucleus as a bag of quarks and gluons, but that doesn't help much in binding energy calculations. But also, it seems to me that the electrostatic term is being left out. It isn't just that you get protons and neutrons far enough apart that the nuclear force is negligible, but also the electrostatic energy from the protons. Remember that it is this energy that Meitner used to figure out fission. Gah4 (talk) 00:08, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Section on Large Scale Binding Energies

I think we need examples where binding energies are measured in grams, kg, or tons--- not just amu. So I used the examples of nuclear weapons and stars. There was a suggestion that this material would go better in nuclear weapons, but in the past I've tried to insert such stuff only to have it rejected as too technical. No doubt they're really trying to tell me it belongs in Binding Energy. What do you think? In any case, people who delete sections, saying they belong somewhere else, are obligated to submit them to that other place to see if they're right. In many cases, they aren't. This is one of them. If you disagree, feel free to submit this to nuclear weapons and see what happens, for yourself Sbharris 21:35, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I am the editor who removed the section. First of all, just because the text did not get in to the nuclear weapons article doesn't make it more or less suitable for this one. Nuclear weapons is written in summary style, so technical details should go into subpages and other related pages, if it is not allready there. I'm not sure if that was your argument.

Regarding this article: It's about binding energy, not weapons or stars. We could mention the subject of released binding energy in these systems, and how the calculating or measuring of binding energy can be applied, but I think this section contains unrelated information, eg. on fission, fusion and Mass-energy equivalence. We should just link to other articles, not duplicate them. Perhaps a rewrite would be better then just deleting it. Im a being too picky? Zarniwoot 00:44, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

You're probably right. I've found a place to discuss conservation of mass in systems in both the articles on mass-energy equivalence and conservation of mass. In both cases these articles really didn't have any discussion of the fact that "rest masses" of complex systems (always measured in the center of momentum frame) are really actually system relativistic masses, and thus conserved so long as nothing leaves the system. It's rather counterintuitive that individual rest masses of particles in a system are not conserved in many reactions, but yet the total system rest mass *is* conserved, so long as the system is closed (in closed systems, where you remain in the COM frame, you can measure, as part of system rest mass, the mass of things which don't even HAVE rest mass, like photons! Also the mass of kinetic energy, in gasses). I'm going to have to add a section on systems to the mass-energy equivalence Wiki, because there's really no good discussion of this point there.

Meanwhile I can take the section on stars and bombs out here. I'll find somewhere else to stick these examples. Sbharris 20:29, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

email to Hyperphysics

To: RodNave:gsu.edu

Subject: at odds with "The Most Tightly Bound Nuclei"

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nucene/nucbin2.html#c1

Why do the masses (2003) for Fe-56 and Ni-62 show that m/A is lower for Fe-56, which is different from B/A?

-Aut

-lysdexia 15:09, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

--- Rod Nave <rodnave:gsu.edu> wrote:

> Hello, Autymn,

>

> I think the case for Ni-62 being the most tightly

> bound is well

> established.

>

> Does "isotopic masses(2003)" refer to a specific

> table?

Atomic Mass Evaluation: http://www.nndc.bnl.gov/amdc. You can also find the tables at http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_nickel.

> The only thing I can suggest is that at the required

> level of accuracy,

> m/A is not exactly the same thing as binding energy

> per nucleon because

> of the difference between neutron and proton mass.

> Ni-62 with 28 n, 32

> p is a slightly higher percentage neutrons than

> Fe-56 with 26 n, 30 p

> . Since showing their difference in binding energy

> requires four

> significant figures, this difference in percentage

> neutrons may tip the

> balance in mass per particle the other way.

That's a good point; neutròns suffer more from the nuclear bonds.

mn-mp = .001388

Ni-62: 61.9283451u, .99884428u/A

Ni-60: 59.9307864u, .99884644u/A

Ni-64: 63.9279660u, .99887447u/A

Fe-56: 55.9349375u, .99883817u/A

Fe-58: 57.9332756u, .99884958u/A

.99884428-.998833817=.000010463

mp = 1.00727646688u; mn = 1.00866491578u

However, that brings up a new problem, that Ni-64 seems to win out:

Ni-62: 28mp + 34mn = 62.4983482u -> 61.9283451u => .5700031u

Ni-60: => .5502320u

Ni-64: => .5877120u

Fe-56: 26mp + 30mn = 56.4491356u -> 55.9349375u => .5141981u

Fe-58: => .5331898u

-Aut

-lysdexia 21:11, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

> However, that brings up a new problem, that Ni-64

> seems to win out:

>

> Ni-62: 28mp + 34mn = 62.4983482u -> 61.9283451u =>

> .5700031u

> Ni-60: => .5502320u

> Ni-64: => .5877120u

> Fe-56: 26mp + 30mn = 56.4491356u -> 55.9349375u =>

> .5141981u

> Fe-58: => .5331898u

Never mind! I didn't divide by A: .0091936, .0091705, .0091830, .0091821, .0091829. Then the strongest nuclei are Ni-62, Ni-64, Fe-58, Fe-56, Ni-60.

-Aut

-lysdexia 23:18, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Notice they're all EE's and involved in storing "extra neutrons". WFPMWFPM (talk) 03:02, 28 May 2008 (UTC) PS Two at a time.WFPMWFPM (talk) 03:02, 28 May 2008 (UTC)See Talk:Nuclear modelWFPMWFPM (talk) 13:50, 28 May 2008 (UTC) So the binding energy reduces the weight of an atom but the binding energy in the Gluon field gives the quarks more mass?

Mass Deficit Confusion

The terms mass deficit, mass defect, and mass difference are all thrown around in this article. Is there a difference between them? Why do the first two sometimes appear in quotation marks in the article? If there is a difference, I don't think it's adequately explained. To complicate matters, there is a Wikipedia article on Mass Excess, which provides a very similar but not identical concept! I think the article would really benefit from a clarification of these terms.

I agree in principle. Therefore I added some data and facts about 4 nuclides and give an explanation to solve this wide-spread misunderstanding. Several Wikipedia-article needs to be reviewed/cleaned-up/rewriten. Sorry for not doing this myelf. :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.245.68.122 (talk) 15:24, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Can there be some clarification on this? I first thought that "defect" was a typo, until I found its widespread use. But "deficit" is also used several times. Is there uniformity in the nuclear physics community? If so, then somewhere it should be spelled out. ISTM that Wikipedia should make a decision: continue to use defect, deficit and difference at the whim of the writer; or arbitrarily decide on one preferred term; in either case, make it clear that the other words are synonymous. Or, if they are not synonymous, to make the distinction clear.

It is confusing. TomS TDotO (talk) 04:50, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Google statistics, not that it recommended to use them, say much more for mass defect than mass deficit, but as well as I know, both are used. It looks to me like some define it in terms of atomic (or nuclear) mass - N -Z, and others minus the mass of N neutrons and Z protons. Gah4 (talk) 06:43, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Cleanup

I added the cleanup tag on November 1, 2008. The math and general ideas are good, but the syntax and presentation need tightening up to be clearer. Have an opening section stating the definition in layman's terms, then continue on to the more in-depth math and better detail.PJtP (talk) 02:33, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Rewriting needed

The paragraph starting "At the peak of binding energy, nickel-62 is the most tightly-bound nucleus," is simply wrong. You can theoretically burn Nickel-62 to Ferrum-56 but not visa verce! And this can happen probably in massive stars if photo desintegration occurs in the star core: 56 ⁶²Ni -> 62 ⁵⁶Fe + 19.77 MeV. Also astro-physicists talk about a crust of neutron stars made up (partially) by ferrum, not by nickel! :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Achim1999 (talk • contribs) 19:09, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

The statement that Nickel-62 is most tightly bound (in terms of energy/nucleon) is correct. However, that does NOT mean you can't get energy by burning it to Fe-56, since Fe-56 actually has the least mass/nucleon. So how can both things be true? Because turning nickel into iron according to your equation also turns a net 44 neutrons into protons! So the energy you get comes not from increased nucleon-binding, but (instead) essentially from the fact that protons are intrinsically lighter than neutrons, and the difference in mass is available for energy, if you're making Fe-56, which has a greater fraction of protons than Ni-62 does. In other words, turning Ni-62 into Fe-56 gives you energy from the same energy source that drives neutron beta-decay. It's not nucleon binding energy. SBHarris 21:04, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

• Re-edit. Now the article is entirely screwed up, as some editors have decided to "coin" their own terms for nuclear binding energy ("total binding energy") and mass deficit. The nuclear binding energy and the mass deficit are the same thing. A long discussion of whether Ni-62 is the most tightly-bound nucleus is relevent only to point out that this doesn't mean you can get the most energy from a given number of nucleons by making Ni-62. You can't. You get the most energy by making Fe-56. However, Ni-62 is INDEED more tightly bound than Fe-56 (per nucleon). The only reason you get more energy by making Fe-56 from a given number of baryons/nucleons, is that you can turn a few neutrons into protons to make Fe-56, and THAT gives you more than enough energy to make up for the less-tight binding per nucleon that occurs in Fe-56. That's it. Ni-62 has the most binding energy per nucleon, but Fe-56 has the least mass per nucleon, but only because a larger fraction of its nucleons are protons, not because they are bound more lightly. The same, BTW, is true of He-3 vs. H-3, which is why H-3 decays to He-3 and not the other way around.

  In any case, I'm tempted to just revert all the changes made in this article today, except to point out the above (which is much more succinct). SBHarris 21:43, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks for your thoughts, but your comments about Fe-56 versus Ni-62 are already (clearly?) explained in this article since a day before your remark. :)

But the main problem stays: the questionability of the "classical" definition of binding energy! The author uses for "total binding energy" another definition which also explains nicely the beta-decay, resp. the energy release of nuclides. To make it explicit: he favors to consider the free neutron as an endothermic bound state which should also be disected! Speaking in other words: he disassembles all nucleons into protons (well, he uses neutrons, but the important point in his definition is: into the same particle!). Then we can compare different nuclides easily and are not forced to compare apples(protons) with pears(neutrons) for a "binding energy" of different(!) nucleons. :) As long as no one can measure the "true" binding energy inside the nucleus (it is even open what mixture of particles the qunatum mechanic wave-functions describe inside the nucleus), there is no reason to assume inside the nucleus the particles act like distinguishable protons and neutrons, which is the only justification to make this classical definition. Thus it comes out to the question: what is the "better" definition for "binding energy of nuclides". IMHO. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.245.89.246 (talk) 09:52, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Cite from above comment:

The nuclear binding energy and the mass deficit are the same thing.

In the article is explicitly (in bold) writen

mass defect = binding energy * c^2

and I believe this is correct. "mass deficit" seems to be the more general wording (not only used in nuclear physics) to me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.245.89.246 (talk) 10:10, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

• the article is and should be about the general concept of "binding energy" with an emphases of "binding energy" in atoms respectively in nuclides, in my personal understanding.

What one defines as "binding energy" in nuclear physics depends on in which particles the atom resp. nuclide should be disassembled. Obviously, there are at least two different sets of basic-particles to use: 1st: neutrons and protons (and electrons) and 2nd: protons and electrons which lead to different numeric values of "binding energy" (which differ nonlinearly!). The question is: which of the two definitions has more physical relevance in nature! Perhaps both are relevant and can not be replaced by one definition usefully. But currently, for the disassembling into protons and neutrons I see no physically relevance, only historical reasons! But the disassembling into only protons and electrons can be nicely used to explain the nuclide decay and nuclide fusion by simply claiming: nature tries to get into states of lowest binding energy! Regards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Achim1999 (talk • contribs) 14:26, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

No. You are pushing a definition of binding energy which is non-standard. We do not do this in encyclopedias-- change the "classical definitions" because we don't like them. This is not the place for that. It is non-standard to consider the "binding energy" of nuclei into "protons and electrons" only, simply because the nucleus is not composed of only protons and electrons. Any more than a free neutron is "composed" of a proton, electron, and antineutrino. These particles are not "bound" in there as separate entities, waiting to get free, in the manner of the electons in an atom. Instead, they don't exist (the energy of an electron bound in the volume of a neutron, if it were "in" there, would be larger than the rest mass of a neutron!) Similarly, there is no way you can explain the spin of N-14 (which is 1) by any combination of 14 protons and 7 "nuclear electrons" which was what scientists imagined before neutrons were discovered. This was a great mystery in the days before the neutron was discovered, and one reason the neutron was (and continues to be) needed in nuclear physics. You can go on about the question of to what degree the existance of seperate protons and neutrons within a nucleus continues to be "reality," but the most successful nuclear models do have them as separate particles, occupying their own separate orbitals with their own separate magic numbers. Their "reality" vs. the supposed "reality" of an electron somehow bound inside a neutron, is not comparable. The one is physically reasonable, the other is not. In any case, this is not a viewpoint you are going to be allowed to push on Wikipedia. The binding energy of a nuclide nucleus means just one thing: how much energy it take to disassemble it into free neutrons and protons. If this doesn't completely explain the energetics of nuclear reactions (which of course it does not) then we merely need to point that out. Nuclear reactions don't always go in the direction of maximal binding energy. Instead they go in the direction of smallest sum of the rest mass of the various products, which is not the same thing.

Fe-56 has the smallest mass known for a collection of 56 nucleons, so reactions will tend to make Fe-56, if they are totally free to do whatever they like consistant with baryon conservation. There is no need to introduced a separate definition of "binding energy" to explain it. A He-3 atom has a smaller mass than H-3 triton nucleus. Binding energy has nothing to do with it. We should simply say that, rather than invent our own definition of binding energy which is not found in any text. Don't use Wikipedia to point out your own problems with the way you think physics should be taught. It's not the place for it.

Finally, if Achim1999 is the same person as the German with the IP: 89.245.89.246, please say so. Am I arguing with two people who want to change the standard definition of "binding energy" in physics, or just one? If just one, I would really appreciate it, if you would take your personal physics someplace else. SBHarris 23:48, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I haven't thought about this for a while, but I thought that atomic mass, including the mass in the table of nuclides, included the mass of orbital electrons. That isn't part of the nuclear binding energy, but you have to include it when using the atomic (nuclide) mass to compute binding energy. Also, as I remember it, the inside of the nucleus is mostly alpha particles. That is, the neutrons and protons move around as alpha particles would, except for the ones left over in odd Z or odd N nuclides. Gah4 (talk) 08:43, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your effort of writing these comments. Sadly, you review here as a politician, but not as a (critical?) scientist. The simple wording "binding energy (of a nuclide or atom)" is highly missleading! If you use e.g. "nucleon binding energy (of a nuclide)" it would be much better. I don't want to change a classical definition, I want to point out its very weakness and present another, hopefully more usefull definition "total binding energy (of a nuclide or atom)". Very sadly, you NOTHING say to support the usefulness of the classic definition except indirectly: others use it for long time! :-( This is called demagogic / political. Scientists reflect their definition and tend to use others if they are more useful. I never argue to consider the nucleus to be made up of protons and electrons in reality! I am forced to made up a reasonable disassembling (of an atom or nuclide or ion) into particles by the general definition of physical binding energy. Argh!

The total binding energy of a (general) ion means just one thing: how much energy it take to disassemble it into free electrons and protons. (you see the analog to your sentence?) The question is: how useful are these both definitions? And the "total binding energy" exactly explains the behaviour "they go in the direction of smallest sum of the rest mass of the various products"!

BTW: Most physicians are even too proud to change the wrongly definition of "current". Sadly first the electro-magnetic theory was put down, assuming a positive charge-particle and later the electron was discovered to be negatively. What did physicians do? They distinguish "technical direction of current" and "real direction of current". And I get the impression you belongs to this class of (proud) physicians defending things simply because they are in use. I was told in school that this (direction of current) is okay, because there exit currents with positive ions. Very bad, insincere reasoning!

Rewrite the article to your likeness as soon as you can. I will no longer support it (sacrify my time) knowing to fight against people with an attitude like you, sorry. Regards, Achim. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Achim1999 (talk • contribs) 10:47, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

What you call "political" or "demagogic" reasons in science are merely agreements that we've made in the past so we can talk to each there. This is why we write 2+2 = 4 and not II + II = IV. Also why we write K as the symbol for potassium when Ps might be more logical, now that more people use latin leters and English names. If you have problems with notation, take them up with IUPAC. That "others have used the previous definion for a long time" is not a bad reason to continue to use it, or to be ashamed of it. Like spelling, it would cause much confusion if it were changed and it's not your job to go around saying you like speling better because the extra l is demogogic. Wikipedia is not the place to "point out weakness of classical definitions" and present others, especially if they are your own original work. This is an encyclopedia. We're here to explain the standard language of science as well as we can. That means it's just fine to point out that the binding energy of a nuclide is (actually) the nucleon binding energy. That makes the definition more precise, and if some people don't like what it means, they are then free to ignore it. It's not fine to think of your own term you like better and introduce that on Wikipedia. That's not why Wikipedia exists.

And by the way, I have no idea what you mean or what point you want t make, when say: "The total binding energy of a (general) ion means just one thing: how much energy it take to disassemble it into free electrons and protons." The article does not talk about binding energy of "ions." I have no idea what you mean. SBHarris 23:44, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Where should I start? Perhaps with the side-remark, that in german the element K ist called Kalium , but there is also a matter called in german Pottasche, it has the composition K₂CO₃. So naming can tell you something about historic language development, not necessary is a logical reason. :) Well, secondly I probably should admit that I react a bit too harsh in my last comment. Excuse me for this. :-/ I got angry and frustrated because you thought I would have demanded to consider neutrons made up of protons and electrons in reality. And you know this ¹⁴N-spin-problem arised out of this conceptual division of a neutron only because we neglected the neutrino! ;)

Alright. I see your point to present summary information because it is in common usage, independent whether it is good founded or even may be wrong or right in this WP-encyclopedia.

You really did a nice job by cleaning up this article a bit more and point out things as they are or should be. Thanks.

And finally to answer your last understanding-question: I liked to consider an ion, not a nuclide or an atom in this "binding energy discussion / review". Simply because this is the most general in this atomic / nuclear context and masses which are measured experimentally, are typically ion-masses which are corrected later by ionization energies to get atom or nuclide energies resp. masses.

What I really get a bit sad now is the fact that the whole article, except the few lines above the list of contents, is only about nuclear binding energy. The general topic binding energy is way to short presented, IMHO! Such an article or page should be better named, say "nuclear binding energy". I don't know whether this is the aim? If not, we should consider some other examples, like "binding energy" in an electric condensator (disassembled into its two plates and its dielektricum) -- only a suggestion / idea -- or binding energy in a piece of simple solid matter, i.e. graphite or quarz, when disassembled into its atoms (chemical binding energy is very important in our macroscopic world). I hope with these last lines I could gave you some constructive feedback for further improving this page. Regards Achim1999 (talk) 15:23, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Getting a little off topic, but a large fraction of power is carried by positive charge carriers. Most power is carried by aluminum, and aluminum has a large fraction of its conduction done by holes. At high fields, the Hall coefficient is positive! Gah4 (talk) 06:28, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

new cleanup

two sections which explain with many words the data for deuterium/deuterons binding energy deleted and 1 line added considering H-2 in the table in the example section. section of semi-emperical mass formula removed. It also pointed to the independedn article. 2 Sentence added under the graphic of binding energy curve. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.70.14.208 (talk) 15:20, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Please stop damaging this article. I added the section on the semi-empirical formula for binding energy for the first time on 18 Jan 2007 after being sick and tired of not finding it in Wikipedia. Every time I've come back since then it's been more severely damaged. First with an essential sentence deleted and most recently completely deleted and replaced with a travesty of an equation that any year 10 high school student could see is totally wrong. This is going to take a lot of fixing. OK, now fixed.Mollwollfumble (talk)

If you're looking for another opinion, I don't mind the empirical mass equation being here. It's a little too technical for the level of the article, but in favor is that it's short, and it's hard to find otherwise (here was the first place I found it!). So including it here, does little "damage." SBHarris 23:17, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

(Because you intended your paragraph below mine, I think you are blaming me, Mollwollfumble.) Sorry, but this should NOT take a lot time of fixing. Simply take the part you need from old history. I thought it is/was to be too detailed to explain this formula in each of its terms! Especially if there is already an own page for the mass-formula which already do this there. Therefore I liked only to see the formula and the reference link to its page. Hence I deleted explanation, but did not change this/"your" formula. Regards, Achim1999 (talk) 15:33, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Special case gravitation

When I pick up a stone (not changing it's temperature, taking it from resting state to resting state, not changing the number or chemical state of its particles), does that stone get "heavier", i.e. does its mass increase? In particular, does the mass of each atomic nucleus in the stone change? Of course, the effect would be unmeasurably small, but imagine this, or the reverse process of lowering matter into a gravitational field, happens on a neutron star (e.g. SGR_1806-20). I believe this is a special case of mass defect, but I've been discussing it with some (ex) physics students and most of them said that the energy that is put into the stone's position is not converted to mass but to "field energy". I think it would be nice to have a definite answer to this question, and maybe also to have it integrated into this page, as a kind of example. Illegal604 (talk) 07:08, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

When you pick up a stone the gravitational potential energy is stored in the gravitational field, not the atoms of the stone or Earth. It's in the system, but hard to say just where, except somewhere in the field (it's easier to say where it isn't, which isn't that it's not in the stone or Earth). There's no mass defect because energy has been ADDED. The system would get heavier, were it not for the fact that the energy came from YOU, and thus you get lighter. The total mass of the Earth (which includes you) doesn't change. SBHarris 01:02, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Removing sections which are just copied introductions of other pages

I'm going to go ahead and remove several of the sections in this article because they are simply copied from other articles. Instead, I'll point out these other articles as examples of binding energy. Natsirtguy (talk) 01:20, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Synergy

It seems that the Synergy comments that keep getting added, and then reverted, are from the Synergy page. Maybe they shouldn't be there, either. I suppose, though, that the exchange energy for fermions could be considered a synergy, so maybe it actually could make some sense. Gah4 (talk) 00:03, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

The use of the word in that sense is completely unfamiliar to me, and sounds like a misapplication by someone who does not understand it, but would like to believe that it can be equated to binding energy. The source given in Synergy § Physics does not appear to support the meaning as binding energy. So I'd suggest that it shouldn't be there either. I've removed it. —Quondum 00:53, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

The binding energy of a system is more than the sum of the components' binding energies. In the English language, there is ONLY ONE word to denote the "whole more than its parts" phenomenon. There is simply no other choice but to use the word "synergy". 91.122.11.68 (talk) 12:44, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Your logic is false. The word "synergy" does not mean "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts" in general. It generally means that there is a cooperative interaction, which is not the same thing at all. And it never refers to the difference between the whole and sum of the parts, and why specifically the energy? Your extremely pointy perspective is not substantiated by the reference you choose to use, which is turn is not admissible as a reference. And simply because you can't find a better word, doesn't mean that it is correct. When have you ever heard of synergy being measured in joules? Desist. I am reverting your changes (again), for very good reason. —Quondum 14:08, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Can you provide a reference to a modern dictionary saying that the word "synergy" does not mean "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts" in general? Desist. I am reverting your changes (again) as unreferenced. 91.122.11.68 (talk) 14:23, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

You (91.122.11.68) are edit warring, here as at Synergy. I do not need to find any reference that shows the contrary of what the article claims to remove something that is clearly nonsense. On the contrary, the onus is on you to show (via a notable secondary reference) that synergy and binding energy are the same thing, as you are claiming. I think we are getting to the point where we should have this article semi-protected to keep you from pushing your rather insular POV. —Quondum 16:03, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

"In this case, much of the potential synergy arises from shared binding energy derived from the tethered GAP and effector domains." https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&hl=ru&q=%22the+potential+synergy+arises+from+shared+binding+energy%22 91.122.11.68 (talk) 16:39, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

"Arises from" is not the same is "is". The reference means by "potential for synergy" in this instance. If someone said the potential for contact arises from proximity, would that mean that contact and proximity are the same thing? No. You have reverted the same text for the third time in a short period. You are being seriously uncooperative – there are now three editors that consider the text as unworthy of keeping. This is my second strong warning to you about pushing your point of view and edit warring, as I note you have reverted the edit again after my last warning, reaching three reverts within a short period. You are undeniably edit warring. —Quondum 17:32, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

That quote does not shed much light. A better source is from R. Buckminster Fuller’s presentation, cited at Synergy#Physics: "The word 'synergy' means 'Behavior of whole systems unpredicted by behavior of any of the systems parts.'" (He also says " Since synergy is the only word having that meaning ...") This definition seems to be related to Fuller's Synergetics, and I don't know how widespread its use is. RockMagnetist(talk) 17:36, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

I have reverted here and here and warned ip on talk page. Source does not mention synergy. This is wp:original research of the purest kind. - DVdm (talk) 17:42, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Even if the definition of synergy is legitimate, there is no reason to mention it in the lead. A lead should summarize the material in the article, not argue for a particular point of view. RockMagnetist(talk) 17:44, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

The lead-in says: "A bound system typically has a lower potential energy than the sum of its constituent parts". But the body of the article does not explain why it is so. That is why the metaphysical word "synergy" must be included in the lead-in. 91.122.11.68 (talk) 17:56, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Not without a proper source--see wp:BURDEN and even less without wp:CONSENSUS on this talk page. That is how Wikipedia works. - DVdm (talk) 18:01, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

I went ahead and reverted back to the version without synergy again. The citation which had been added to bolster the claim that synergy is used as a synonym for potential energy was in German. While it is possible that the word synergy is used in this manner in German, it is not used that way in English. (91.122.11.68), could you explain some of your motivations for including these references to synergy in this article? Natsirtguy (talk) 22:04, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Binding energy/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

This is an intro-bio topic (enzyme biochemistry), but there is no biology content in the article! - tameeria 20:59, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 20:59, 5 May 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 09:41, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

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The first link worked but the second arrived at the message "Page cannot be displayed due to robots.txt." Both seemed too low quality to keep in the article. RockMagnetist(talk) 21:58, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Planning Edits

Hello fellow editors. I am enrolled in a Technical Editing class at Texas A&M, and I will be editing this article as a part of our Wikipedia project. Please be patient with me as I am still learning. The following is a preliminary list of the tasks I plan to work on:

1. Clean up the article's content so that it clearly conveys its information
2. Correct the tone of the article so that it doesn't sound like an essay
3. Remove redundant information

I will continue to list major issues as they arise. Do not hesitate to reach out! --Scott Rayner (talk) 17:58, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Table?

Am I right in thinking that the formatting of the "Types of Binding Energy" section into a table is inappropriate given the MOS recommendations here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Tables#Inappropriate_use Etherfire (talk) 19:57, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Maybe it isn't so bad as a table, but it doesn't need to be sortable. As MOS says, though, a list might be fine. Gah4 (talk) 21:36, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

. It is the energy equivalent of the mass defect, the difference between the mass number of a nucleus and its true measured mass.

The article says . It is the energy equivalent of the mass defect, the difference between the mass number of a nucleus and its true measured mass. which sounds wrong. It should be the atomic mass of the separate protons and neutrons, not the sum of the number of protons and neutrons, commonly called A. Gah4 (talk) 21:40, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

quarks

How can binding energy represent mass of the nucleon? Binding enrgy is negativ!!!! Ra-raisch (talk) 22:17, 2 September 2021 (UTC)