Hey guys. I’m struggling to understand the concept of moles, and was hoping someone could explain it a lot easier than in previous posts. I understand that a mole of something means that there is 6.022 x 10\^23 of that something (similar to the idea of 1 dozen = 12 things), but I don’t quite understand when for example 1 mole of Nitrogen is 14g.
If 1 mole of nitrogen means that there is 6.022 x 10\^23 nitrogen atoms, how does 1 mole of nitrogen equal 14g? Is it saying that 6.022 x 10\^23 nitrogen atoms (1 mole of nitrogen) is equal to 14g, since the mass of a nitrogen atom (single nitrogen atom) would be super small, and so we use moles to convert it into a reasonable mass for easier calculations e.g. 14g?
Hope that wasn’t too confusing :S
Thanks everyone! 🙂
In: Chemistry
an atom has a given mass, for example C6 (carbon) has 12 units of mass per atom
mole is the number of C6 atoms you need for it to be exactly 12 as well, but this time grams
and for all substances this is the same number (just like you always need 1000 1kg packets to get 1000kg total mass, regardless of what these packets contain it will stay the same)
Your dozen eggs comparison is a good one. Converting it to grams would be like putting that dozen eggs on a scale. 12 rocks would weigh different than 12 eggs. So these comparisons are when you have one mole of something, what does that weigh?
Best explanation I ever got was this. It’s a measure of density, not weight. Which weights more, 5lbs of gold, or 5lbs of feathers. They weigh the same, but 5lbs of feathers is going to take up a lot more space.
if you can understand that 1 dozen donuts weighs (arbitrarily) 480g, hopefully you can understand that 1 mole of nitrogen weighs 14 g
If you had a mole of bowling balls, it would take up more space and be heavier than a mole of ping pong balls. This is extremely useful for extremely small things.
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