This is national Chemistry Week. It"s constantly chosen come coincide v whichever calendar week consists of October 23 (or 10/23), due to the fact that October 23 is "Mole Day".

You are watching: 6.02*10 to the 23rd power

"Huh? Why would certainly chemists memory a furry critter that burrows underground?"

Not the mole. The mole chemists celebrate is a unit.

1 mole = 6.02 x 1023 of every little thing it is you want a mole of.

You deserve to think of a mole together being type of the chemists" equivalent of a dozen -- it"s a practically sized bundle because that working v the kind of stuff chemists occupational with, namely, atoms and molecules. If they to be working with eggs, or shoes, or some various other stuff, lock would probably use a different unit 보다 the mole.

Remember the atoms room really, really small. They are so small that you"ve never seen one through your naked eye. (Depending on exactly how you score things favor diamonds, you may have actually seen a molecule with your naked eye, however even many molecules are method beyond the boundaries of your visual acuity.) If passing intro chem depended upon doing experiments where you had to weigh out single atoms that reagents, there would be no chemists.

Weighing the end 6.02 x 1023 atoms, though, is do-able. 6.02 x 1023 atoms of carbon sweet 12.01 grams. 6.02 x 1023 atoms of copper weigh 63.55 grams. 6.02 x 1023 atoms of helium weigh 4.003 grams.

I don"t have any of this memorized. I just turned to mine handy, dandy regular table. Under each element"s price is provided an atomic weight. Carbon"s atomic load is 12.01. That method a solitary atom that carbon has actually a mass of 12.01 atom mass devices (amu). However, due to the fact that we"ve already listed that friend hardly ever want to deal with one atom at a time (at the very least if you"re a chemist -- perhaps physicists would fairly deal with single atoms), the more important truth that you can glean from the table is the 6.02 x 1023 atom of carbon have a mass of 12.01 grams. Or, simply, 1 mole of carbon is 12.01 g.

Once you identify that atomic masses tell you how numerous grams in a mole of one element, you have the right to measure your preferred amount of multi-element molecules, too. Table salt is NaCl. Na has actually atomic mass of 23, Cl has atomic mass of 35.5, so a mole of NaCl (or 6.02 x 1023 molecules of NaCl) is 58.5 g. To find the mass of a mole of H2O, you have actually 2 moles of H (atomic weight 1) and also one that O (atomic load 16) -- 18 g that H2O holding every 6.02 x 1023 molecules.

From this, it"s a great bet that mixing an equal number of moles the table salt and water will certainly not yield a saline systems so lot as a slightly damp heap of salt.

In addition to gift the variety of atoms or molecule (or shoes, or eggs, or pencils, etc.) in a mole, 6.02 x 1023 has actually a name the sticks in people"s heads: Avogadro"s number. Avogadro also has a law:

Equal quantities of gases at the very same temperature and also pressure save on computer the same number of molecules.

If we"re handling "ideal gases (gases who molecules room not as well enormous, and which don"t have far-ranging attractions between the molecules), in ~ standard temperature and pressure (0 o C and also 1 atm), 22.4 liters the gas will contain 6.02 x 1023 molecule (or 1 mole). So, at traditional temperature the pressure, balloons filled v 22.4 together of H2, N2, O2, Cl2, He, Ne, and Ar will each save on computer a mole the gas molecules. However, the masses that gasses in this balloons will be various (2 g, 28 g, 32 g, 71 g, 4 g, 20 g, and also 40 g, respectively). This way a mole that argon is denser -- through a many -- 보다 a mole of helium.

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That Avogadro"s variety of equates to a mole the has also given rise to clever marketing, prefer this:

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The label clarifies the there room not in reality 6.02 x 1023 avocados in every package of agakmall (it"s closer come 5 or 6). Yet it"s a fine save bought guacamole, and also the chemistry joke on the package simply makes it much more appealing.