andrewcellini Posted December 5, 2015 Posted December 5, 2015 (edited) I saw AJB say that the mass of a free electron + free proton is larger than that of a hydrogen atom....why is that? the mass of hydrogen is lighter because of the binding energy which is negative. m = mp + me - E/c^2 m is mass of hydrogen (in ground state), mp mass of proton, me mass of electron and E/c^2 is the mass contribution due to the binding energy. the energy required to separate the electron is equal to the absolute value of the binding energy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_energy Edited December 5, 2015 by andrewcellini
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