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Published online 22 September 2003 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news030915-15
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Chemists' constant hangs in the balance
New silicon tally may change Avogadro's number.
Chemists may be forced to change their value for one of nature's fundamental numbers - Avogadro's constant - following more accurate measurements made using a crystal of pure silicon1.
The constant - named after the nineteeth-century Italian physicist Amedeo Avogadro - is used to measure mass based on a fixed number of atoms.
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