Happy Mole Day everyone!!
I know, what a joyous occasion it is! October 23 is National Mole Day. The furry creature, you ask? No, of course not. A mole is a chemist's best friend! All you chemistry majors out there (not going to be me....) know what I'm talking about. In fact, most everyone who's ever taken a chemistry or biology class knows what I'm talking about.
Basically, a mole is a unit of quantity. Kind of like a dozen. A dozen eggs is twelve eggs, right? Well a mole is used in chemistry to quantify things--particles, atoms, molecules, etc. It is represented by Avogadro's number, which is 6.02 x 10^23. So, if you had a mole of eggs, for example, you would have 6.02 E 23 eggs. For those of you who don't know scientific notation, that would be:
602,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 eggs. A very big number, used to quantify normally very tiny things, such as atoms.
Have you figured out why it's October 23? It's actually from 6:02 am to 6:02 pm on October 23. Get it? (October is the 10th month, ie 10-23)
For those of you interested, you can check out this link:
http://www.moleday.org/
Chemistry classes around the world celebrate this amazing useful discovery. We did at our high school. Last year (when I was in honors chemistry) my group made a 30 minute movie for our project--best project I've ever done. This year, the chemistry classes did interactive "exhibits" at lunch. For example, one group had whack-a-mole, and another had a display of Happy GilMOLE....where you could putt the "mole ball" trying to get a "mole in one."
It's an unbelievably corny event. But everyone loves it!
Impress your friends, you've just learned what a mole is!
I know, what a joyous occasion it is! October 23 is National Mole Day. The furry creature, you ask? No, of course not. A mole is a chemist's best friend! All you chemistry majors out there (not going to be me....) know what I'm talking about. In fact, most everyone who's ever taken a chemistry or biology class knows what I'm talking about.
Basically, a mole is a unit of quantity. Kind of like a dozen. A dozen eggs is twelve eggs, right? Well a mole is used in chemistry to quantify things--particles, atoms, molecules, etc. It is represented by Avogadro's number, which is 6.02 x 10^23. So, if you had a mole of eggs, for example, you would have 6.02 E 23 eggs. For those of you who don't know scientific notation, that would be:
602,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 eggs. A very big number, used to quantify normally very tiny things, such as atoms.
Have you figured out why it's October 23? It's actually from 6:02 am to 6:02 pm on October 23. Get it? (October is the 10th month, ie 10-23)
For those of you interested, you can check out this link:
http://www.moleday.org/
Chemistry classes around the world celebrate this amazing useful discovery. We did at our high school. Last year (when I was in honors chemistry) my group made a 30 minute movie for our project--best project I've ever done. This year, the chemistry classes did interactive "exhibits" at lunch. For example, one group had whack-a-mole, and another had a display of Happy GilMOLE....where you could putt the "mole ball" trying to get a "mole in one."
It's an unbelievably corny event. But everyone loves it!
Impress your friends, you've just learned what a mole is!
