What is a Mole?

What is a Mole?

Is it an animal that lives underground?  No!  It is a very important number that is used by chemists and physicists everyday.  The mole is equal to 6.02 x 10^23.  That is to say that 6.02 x 10^23 of anything; particles, atoms, electrons, etc. is in one mole of that substance.  So if you have 1 mole of hydrogen atoms, then you have 6.02 x 10^23 hydrogen atoms!  The number itself is technically equal to the number of atoms in .012 kg of carbon 12.  The incredibly important number is also called Avagadro's number.  It is named after Amedeo Avagadro:

This famous chemists was responsible for Avagadro's Law which states that an ideal gas with the same temperature, pressure and volume contains the same number of molecules, regardless of which gas it is.  This was very important for the development of chemistry!

Students:

We will begin to learn how to convert between moles and number of atoms or particles.  This will allow us to find the weight and or the number of atoms in a certain amount of something.  The quiz on friday will include some of these type conversions and some of the conversions we started last week; going from grams to kilograms, liters to milliliters, etc.  Please study!