Relative atomic mass
It is a synonym for atomic weight, though it is not to be confused with relative isotopic mass. Relative atomic mass is also frequently used as a synonym for "standard" atomic weight and these quantities may have overlapping values if the relative atomic mass used is that for an element from Earth under defined conditions. However, relative atomic mass (atomic weight) is still technically distinct from standard atomic weight because of its application only to the atoms obtained from a single sample; it is also not restricted to terrestrial samples, whereas standard atomic weight averages multiple samples but only from terrestrial sources. Relative atomic mass is therefore a more general term that can more broadly refer to samples taken from non-terrestrial environments or highly specific terrestrial environments which may differ substantially from Earth-average or reflect different degrees of certainty (e.g. in number of significant figures) than those reflected in standard atomic weights.
Mass–energy equivalence
Once the nucleus was discovered, experimenters realized that the very high binding energies of the atomic nuclei should allow calculation of their binding energies, simply from mass differences. But it was not until the discovery of the neutron in 1932, and the measurement of the neutron mass, that this calculation could actually be performed (see nuclear binding energy for example calculation). A little while later, the Cockcroft–Walton accelerator produced the first transmutation reaction (), verifying Einstein's formula to an accuracy of ±0.5%.
In 2005, Rainville et al. published a direct test of the energy-equivalence of mass lost in the binding energy of a neutron to atoms of particular isotopes of silicon and sulfur, by comparing the mass lost to the energy of the emitted gamma ray associated with the neutron capture. The binding mass-loss agreed with the gamma ray energy to a precision of ±0.00004%, the most accurate test of to date.