Fascinating
Facts
Avogadro Number
- Every first year Chemistry student is aware
of Avogadro Number and when asked, without hesitation will give
its value as 6.023 x 1023.
- But most of us do not really appreciate
the significance of the number that is how large or small it
is.
- Whatever concepts we learn
we need to see it in relation to the physical reality of it in
our daily life without which the learning may be devoid of understanding
and therefore application.
- The words big, tall, fat,
far are meaningless by themselves. They acquire a meaning when
there is comparison.
- “A rat is small”.
Well true if it is being compared with an elephant and certainly
not with respect to an ant.
- Let us now attempt to visualise how
big or small Avoagadro Number is, by using some comparisons involving
events in our daily life.
- The area of Karnataka one
of the 25 States in India is, 191,791 square kilometers(Oxford
Atlas). Suppose one morning One single Avogadro number of water
drops fall on this state to what height will the water level raise?
(assuming the water remains within the state borders) Will there
be any significance raise at all? Will it be a few mm? Or a few
Cm?, Or kilometers?.
- Suppose you had One
Avogadro number of dollars/ruppees with you, obviously you
are rich, and you decide to share your wealth with the less
fortunate beings. You start giving away 1000 dollars/ruppees
per second per person to every human being on this planet,
how long will it take before you are “dollar less”.
Consider the human population on this planet to be about
6 billion.
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