Question

This may be a weird question, but I was assigned this project about moles, and I do not understand the instructions at all... I attached the instruction sheet. If someone could explain the top part, I would appreciate it.

Answer 1

First you have to choose any object that you can measure the mass or the length

Answer 2

can be anything, your pencil, your ring, your finger, a coin, a pendrive, and orange, a watermelon, etc

Answer 3

ok, so, I was thinking about measuring the length of an airplane.

Answer 4

you will have access to measure the length of a plain? or it is a toy plain in your bedroom?

Answer 5

no, I looked up online and got the length of a boeing 747, because that is a typical plane that most people are familiar with the relative size of. Would a pencil or something work better, because I don't know what exactly I am supposed to do with the measurements.

Answer 6

I will suggest something smaller but, if you like a plane go ahead and find the length of a plane, letter if it necessary you will figure out how to do with any other object. OK please tell me how long is the 747

Answer 7

it is 71 meters in length

Answer 8

good!, It is exactly 71 meters? 71.0 m, 71.00 m?

Answer 9

it is actually 70.6 meters. I forgot to turn off my rounding.

Answer 10

Ok, so in your measurement how many significant figures you have?

Answer 11

3

Answer 12

great! remember that because then your calculations can not have more significant figures than your original measurement.
Now the step 3 of the problem tell you to multiply that measurment by the Avogadro's number to calculate how long is going to be one mole of the plane length.
so, multiply 70.6 x 6.02 x 10^23

Answer 13

4.25x10^25

Answer 14

Ok that are meters, now you have to find a distance that is near that size or half of that length. For example try to find the distance between the earth and the moon, or between the Sun and Pluto and compare that distance with the meters that you just has calculated.

Answer 15

The distance from our Sun to Pluto is 5930000000 km = 5.93 x 10^9 km

Answer 16

ok, so the distance from the earth to the moon is 238,900 miles which is 1,261,392,000 meters. That is half the size of the original measurement.

Answer 17

no, if you divide the original measurement 4.25x10^25 by 1,261,392,000 meters you get 3.36 x 10 ^16 times
You have to find a even bigger distance

Answer 18

ok, is this why it would be easier to measure something smaller like a pencil?

Answer 19

Anyway you will get a very big number, you can try letter with the pencil but the plane can work too
for example the distance between the sun and the closest star is
3.99234299 × 10^16 meters

Answer 20

ok, so I understand how we got here, but this is where I get confused. What do I do with all the measurements?

Answer 21

the idea is that you can figure out how big is a mole or how small is an atom. And for example in your case if you have a mole of airplane and put then head to tale one after another, you will made a line longer than go back and forth from the sun to the closet star several times.

Answer 22

in fact more than 1000 million times

Answer 23

oh ok. That makes much more sense now. I thought that was were we would be going with this. Is there a way that you figure out exactly how many times you would have to go back and forth between the sun and star?

Answer 24

you divide the mole of planes length 4.25 x 10^25 meters by the distance between the sun and the star 3.99 × 10^16 meters

Answer 25

ok. thank you so much for your help. This helps me a lot with my original idea. I just needed help seeing how it works with a different example. Thanks again.

Answer 26

you are welcome,good luck!