National Mole Day

Posted on 23rd October 2007 by Ryan Somma in science holidays
National Chemistry Week

Happy Mole Day!!!

On the 23rd of October from 6:02 AM to 6:02 PM (6:02 10/23) is National Mole Day, a day of appreciation for chemistry and Avogadro’s Number (6.02 x 10^23), the basic measuring unit in chemistry. A Mole is simply an amount of substance, like a dozen. It is based on the number of atoms in 0.012 kilograms of carbon-12, currently empirically measured at 6.02214179(30)×1023 mol-1. It also has the property:

That quantity of a substance whose mass in grams is the same as its formula weight. For example, iron has an relative atomic mass of 55.845 u, so a mole of iron has a mass of 55.845 grams. This notation is very commonly used by chemists and physicists. (source)

Fun Facts (taken from yahoo answers)

  • One mole of paper would make a stack that would reach to the moon more than 80 billion times
  • A one liter bottle of water contains 55.5 moles of water.
  • One mole of inches would be1,616,434 light years, or across our galaxy and back 8 times
  • One mole of seconds is about 19 quadrillion years, 4,240,666 times the age of the earth, or 954,150 times the age of the universe itself
  • One mole of cents could repay the United States National Debt 86 million times

The American Chemical Society also celebrates National Chemistry Week this week. Its 2007 Theme is The Many Faces of Chemistry, “Celebrating the diversity of the discipline and its practitioners.” They also have lots of activities for children interested in DIY chemistry.

Mole Day may alternately be celebrated on June 2nd from 10:23 AM to 10:23 PM (6/02 10:23).

Comments (13)

13 Comments

  1. Did you know that Avogadro’s number is named after him but he had nothing to do with it? A group of scientists
    led by Jean Baptiste Perrin suggested that the number be named in his honour.

    The number was first estimated by a German scientist, Johann Josef Loschmidt, and in Germany today it is often called the Loschmidt number.

    Comment by Kav — October 23, 2007 @ 8:47 am

  2. Those wacky Germans!

    Comment by Clint — October 23, 2007 @ 11:44 am

  3. That’s an interesting bit of information I did not come across in my (embarrassingly brief) research, but sure enough it’s true, Loschmidt first calculated the number and German texts still refer to the mole as Loschmidt’s Constant.

    Apparently, we have a different definition of Loschmidt’s Constant, which is “the number density of particles (atoms or molecules) of an ideal gas at standard temperature and pressure.” Currently accepted as:

    2.686 X 10 (to the) 25 m (to the) -3

    WordPress won’t let me do SUP tags.

    Comment by ideonexus — October 23, 2007 @ 8:39 pm

  4. ” hate chemistry. ” – Frustrated young scientist.

    Comment by Nick Hamden — October 24, 2007 @ 12:30 am

  5. use ‘^’ instead.

    Well I thought it was true but now I see that it is on wikipedia… :-)

    Comment by Kav — October 24, 2007 @ 6:02 am

  6. I had a discussion with a friend of mine who works on the space program in Houston about Mole Day last year, and I had a hard time remembering when it was. It seemed to me to be late in the school year, so I always thought it was June 2, but he was insisting it was October 23. Problem solved! Thanks for the great blog!

    Comment by flyingsirkus — October 24, 2007 @ 12:39 pm

  7. Chemistry sucks balls

    Comment by Michael Jordan — October 21, 2008 @ 10:31 am

  8. whats the theme this year?

    Comment by Hannah Montana — October 22, 2008 @ 10:48 pm

  9. what is a moles favorite rapper?

    Mole-ja-boi

    Comment by aaron and brendan — October 23, 2008 @ 9:17 am

  10. I’d like to know why National Mole Day is on the 23rd October from 6.02 am to 6.02 pm.

    Comment by Corentin — January 17, 2009 @ 10:15 am

  11. There are actually two Mole Days for the number 6.022?141?79(30)×10^23. The 10/23 one uses the exponent, while there is also an 06/02 one that runs 10:23 to 22:23. : )

    Comment by ideonexus — January 20, 2009 @ 6:18 pm

  12. I’m so confused in this class. I’ve never had a problem in an honors sciences class before this one. And I feel incompetent because I’m struggling while others can do this with their eyes closed! BLAHHH!!!! I HATE IT!

    Comment by CHEMISTRY_IS_GAY — June 1, 2011 @ 11:36 pm

  13. Is there any more fun facts or jokes about Mole Day or Avogadro’s number???

    Comment by Brittany — October 20, 2012 @ 2:38 pm

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