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Which element was originally used to calculate atomic mass units
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Historically, oxygen was used as the reference for the atomic mass unit — chemists took 1 atom of oxygen to be 16 mass units (1/16 of an oxygen atom = 1 amu). Physicists later used the isotope oxygen-16 specifically, and in 1961 IUPAC/IUPAP adopted the current standard: 1 unified atomic mass unit (u) = 1/12 of the mass of a carbon‑12 atom.
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