For Mol Problems, Call Avogadro: 602-1023
R.E Uthe
General College, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455; uthex001@umn.edu
People usually have difficulty comprehending very large
and very small numbers. Many of my introductory
chemistry students have a similar problem understanding
the immense size of Avogadro´s number. Even if I write
Avogadro´s number with all the zeros on the chalkboard,
its magnitude does not resonate with students because
they do not have a reference to which they can relate
such a large number.
Most introductory chemistry textbooks designed for
general education students approach Avogadro´s number
as the number of species in a mole, as the number of
species in a specific number of grams of the chemical
entity, or from the need to deal physically with lots of
atoms because the atoms are so small. In addition,
articles published in this Journal describe several other
approaches to introducing Avogadro´s number to general
chemistry students.
I find that doing calculations involving how long it would
take to count Avogadro´s number or how many people
would have to be doing the counting is the best way to
instill in my students the immense size of a mole of
particles. Of all the strategies I´ve employed during a
quarter century of teaching, this strategy is one the
students seem to understand and “absorb” the best.
To get my student thinking about very large numbers, I
ask them to estimate the number of automobiles on earth.
Usually the answers vary widely, and the must settle on
one number. Then I ask them to estimate the number of
humans on the earth, currently about 6.1 billion. After
that, the students estimate the number of grains of sand
on a “typical” beach, with answers also varying widely.
By consensus, we agree on some number. Finally I hold
up a small glass containing 18 grams of water and ask the
students which one of their three previous estimates
closely matches the number of water molecules in the
glass. The answer, of course, is none of them.
At this point I introduce Avogadro´s number as the
measurement for our “standard batch” of particles and
compare it to the students´ three estimates by writing
their numbers without exponents directly below
Avogadro´s number already written on the chalkboard.
To emphasize the wide discrepancy in these numbers, I
ask the student how many sand grains they could count if
they counted one grain per second for their entire lives
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu  Vol. 79 No 10 October 2002  Journal of Chemical Education
(which we assume at 80 years), counting 24 hours a day.
The result is 2.5x1019 sand grains, which doesn´t even
approach the magnitude of Avogadro´s number. (Doing
the calculation involves a review of dimensional analysis
as a problem-solving technique, practice using
exponential numbers in their calculator displays, and a
discussion of scientific notation.) I then ask, “What if
every person now living had started counting sand grains
in this fashion?” The result is 1.5x1019 sand grains
counted in the assumed 80-year lifetimes of all living
humans; this number is 0,0026% of Avogadro´s number.
I continue to involve the students in the exploration of
very large numbers with the following discussion. Our
genus of Hominids evolved about 2 million years ago.
“How many grains of sand could have been counted by
now if the count by one Hominid of one grain per second
had begun then? The answer is 6.3x1013 sand grains at
one grain per second for 2 million yeas. “And how many
years would a human have to count one sand grain per
second to equal Avogadro´s number? The result is
1.9x1016 years! This number is over four millions times
the age of the earth (4.6 billion years) and well over a
million times the age of the universe (about 14 billion
years).
To show the equivalency between the two measurement
units for formula weight, we use ammonium phosphate
as an example and calculate its formula weigh to be
149.0 amu per formula unit. Then, using dimensional
analysis we combine that formula weight, the amu-to-
gram conversion, and the Avogadro´s number to obtain
149.0 grams per mole for ammonium phosphate. After
doing the same kind of calculation for water, the students
conclude that the numerical part of the molecular weight
(or atomic weight or formula weight, depending on the
species) does, indeed, have two measurement units-amu
per (average) formula unit or grams per mole for an
Avogadro number of particles.
Finally, I again hold up the glass containing 18 grams of
water. I remind the students that 18 grams of water
equals one mole of water, which equals an Avogadro
number of molecules of water. To conclude I ask the
students a simple rhetorical question. “If this small
amount of water comprises 6.02x1023 molecules, how
many molecules of water are in each of you right now?
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