happy mole day!

Mole Day?
No, not the furry little critters that tear up your yard.
I speak of the word which represents a number, a word of the same ilk as dozen or gross.
Here's the difference though: the number represented by a mole is GIGANTIC.
602,200,000,000,000,000,000,000
Seriously.
That's twenty zeroes after the 6022 portion.
The number is usually written as 6.022 x 10 to the 23rd power.
Like I said: GIGANTIC.
But here's the beautiful part: every time you say you have a mole of a substance, you know exactly how many pieces of that substance you have.
Here's how it works.
When you have a dozen glucose molecules, then you know you have exactly 12 glucose molecules, n'est-ce pas?
And if you have a gross (a dozen dozen) of glucose molecules, then you have exactly 144 glucose molecules.
And so it follows that when you have one mole of glucose molecules, you know that you have exactly 602,200,000,000,000,000,000,000 glucose molecules.
It's just easier to use the words 'dozen', 'gross' and 'mole' than to trot out the numerical counts those words represent.
Also, when talking of atoms or molecules, which are generally submicroscopic, then it's far easier to use the term 'mole' than to actually have to try to laboriously count out the quantity.
Mole Day celebrates the 'mole' from 6:02 AM to 6:02 PM on October 23rd of every year.
This was the 26th anniversary of the first Mole Day in 1991.

I made sure my students will remember this day.
Not only did they have their third test today, but the test was all about the mole as it is used in chemistry quantities such as molar masses and molar ratios and mole-mole conversions and mole-gram conversions...
aaahhhhh!
Such fun!
(smile!)
Celebrating Mole Day is one of the perks of teaching Chem1151 in the Fall semester!
I hope it will be regarded as one of the perks of taking this class in the fall.
(smile)