8 Lessons
What is a mole? Well instead of the usual animal that pops up in most people’s minds, a mole is actually a unit of measurement in chemistry. Although the idea of a new unit of measurement being learned might be unwelcome. The chapter is actually pretty simple to learn and master. With the aid of this course, any student will be proficient in the use of moles and be able to apply them into any situation which requires their usage.
Think of moles as a "chemist's dozen". Just as 12 eggs is a dozen eggs, 6.02 × 1023 eggs is a mole of eggs. 6.02 × 1023 molecules of oxygen is a mole of oxygen. The number of grams in a mole is different from substance to substance. If you're like most students, it's this that's confusing you. Picture it this way: a dozen elephants have a different weight than a dozen rabbits- but in each case, you have a dozen animals. Similarly, a mole of oxygen gas has a different weight than a mole of water- but in each case, you have 6.02×1023 molecules.
Why use moles? You often want to know how many molecules you have in a sample of a substance. Counting the molecules individually would be completely impractical. Even if you had a way to see the individual molecules, there are just too many, even in a tiny sample. Moles were defined to solve the problem of counting large numbers of molecules. With moles, you count the number of molecules in the sample by weighing it. This course aims to inspire students and resolve the complexities of mole calculations to easy tasks.
