4.1 – The Mole
Mole – the amount of a substance that is equal to the number of atoms in 12 grams of Carbon – 12
**to help visualize what a mole is, think of it as a “counting unit”, similar to how we think of “a dozen”.
You can have a dozen of anything (cookies, houses, eggs, etc) just like you can have a mole of anything.
Dozen = 12 items
Mole = 6.022 x 1023 items
Avogadro’s Number – created by Amedeo Avogadro, this is the mole value (6.022 x 1023)
**Quick Quiz**
1. If you have a mole of friends, how many friends do you have?
2. If you have a mole of quarters, how many quarters do you have?
To put this in perspective, let’s say you had a mole of standard sized paper clips. If you lined them up
end to end, how far would the paper clips reach in feet? (hint: you approach these problems just like
you did in the dimensional analysis unit. Start with your known value, and continue to use your
conversions until you reach your unknown value)
(6.022 x 1023 paper clips / 1) x (1.5 in / 1 paper clip) x (1 ft / 12 in) = 75,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ft
**The distance from Earth to our outermost planet Pluto, is 2,660,000,000 miles at its closest point in
orbit. Using conversions, how many trips could a mole of standard paper clips make to Pluto?
Docsity.com
