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IsotopeData[0] Does Not Give { neutron }.

Posted 10 years ago
POSTED BY: Evan Berkowitz
5 Replies

It will be much easier to handle this by defining your own isotopeData function. Something along the lines of

isotopeData[0] = {Entity["Isotope", "Neutron"]}
isotopeData[x___] := IsotopeData[x]

plus any other cases that you might need for the neutron.

This is easier than having many Ifs.

POSTED BY: Szabolcs Horvát
Posted 10 years ago

That's absolutely true, of course. But it seems like this functionality should be native.

POSTED BY: Evan Berkowitz

It is probably worth noting that the form

IsotopeData[_Integer]

is not a documented form (http://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/IsotopeData.html) and that the defined and thus supported form is

IsotopeData[{Z,A}]

But I agree that if IsotopeData[1] yields the isotopes of Hydrogen then IsotopeData[0] should perhaps yield "neutronium", though sticklers for nomenclature may argue that an element should only be one with possible electrons in its configuration.

POSTED BY: David Reiss
Posted 10 years ago

It is a documented form. Under "details" on the documentation you linked the third bullet is:

IsotopeData["name"] or IsotopeData[Z] gives a list of all known isotopes of the element with the specified name or atomic number.

... and I guess I should concede that atomic-physicist sticklers might question the neutron's place in IsotopeData, but nuclear-physicist sticklers (myself included) know it's place on the chart of the nuclides.

POSTED BY: Evan Berkowitz

Oops, you're right. I stand corrected--actually I am sitting, but I am corrected nonetheless.

POSTED BY: David Reiss
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