Why did the Google molecular weight of methane come out as 20.067?
Hello,
I was working on atmospheric composition and asked google methane pubchem molecular weight
It came up with 20.067 which traces to
Now I am tired, but carbon is 12.011 and hydrogen is 1.008*4, so the total should be closer to 16.011
Is this page supposed to be deuterated? 12.011 + 2*4.0282035557 = 20.067407
But Google got it wrong. Is there some way to label (2H4)Methane as containing 4 deuteriums?
I suggest calling it CD4, or deuterated methane, or at least C(2H)4, or you have to talk to Google.
Not my job to correct Google’s mistakes, but I think your page is very misleading. I could not immediately understand your page without counting on my fingers and toes to figure out why CH4 was used and not CD4
I got the “right” answer by asking average molecular weight of methane site:gov
Which leads to https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Methane where the Molecular formula is also CH4
“molecular weight of methane” has 1.08 Million entry points on the Internet and those page ownere are NOT all working together seamlessly for the benefit of the 4.8 Billion Internet users.
[ There is no email to report problems with google pages or algorithms. The feedback is badly handled. ]
Richard Collins, Director, The Internet Foundation
