On May 15, 2009, at 10:40 AM, Tom Goddard wrote:

Hi Armida,

 Elaine is right.  The atoms are weighted by their mass, carbon counts
12 times more than a hydrogen.  Isotopic abundances are not considered
-- I think Chimera's atom.element.mass is just the number of protons
plus neutrons in the post prevalent isotope.

The mass is the number from the periodic table of the elements -- which is an average across isotopes.

--Eric

                        Eric Pettersen
                        UCSF Computer Graphics Lab
                        http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu