Chemistry for Idiots, Humans and Rebels/Mole Concept

Introduction A mole [not the animal] is, very simply put, a way to describe the amount of a substance. A chemist might use 1 mole of carbon in the same way you would order 1 dozen apples in the supermarket. Let us look at the official definition of a mole first, and what it means:A mole of a particular object is a collection of exactly 6.02214076×16.02214076 23 elementary entities.Similar to how a dozen refers to 12 of anything; it can be a dozen apples, a dozen books or a dozen of your favorite chocolate cakes, a mole is simply that very big number of things. How big of a number exactly? A mole is exactly 602,214,076,000,000,000,000,000 (huge number) of things. That is all there is to a mole. These entities could be anything you want. You can have one mole of carbon atoms, one mole of water molecules or 10 moles of your favorite cake [although having 6 million billion billion cakes is really a lot!] Instead of writing this huge number in all of their calculations, chemists prefer to assign a symbol to the number instead. This symbol is . Some background Atomic Mass Unit An Atomic Mass Unit [amu] is another unit to describe the mass of atoms. Individual atoms are so tiny they cannot be weighed using kilograms, it would result in absurdly small numbers. Molecular Mass Molecular mass = mass of the molecule! (Duh statement again!) Maybe a nice way to introduce this would be to question the reader! What about stuff that is not molecule? Formula mass! Sample problems on molecular mass. Need to have a good description, with an analogy to packages and possibly pop references. For example a combo meal, or a gadget combo, anything. This is for: Keeping the students awake! Making them think about the introduced topics rather than just serve it to them on a platter! Note : If anyone someday starts collaborating on this project, we will have to figure out a way for streamlining inputs on text boxes, main text, sample problems, illustrations etc. Justification A lot of people might not agree with what I have said. A lot of them might counter argue by saying that this is too much, that formula mass/molecular mass is pretty straightforward! Yes it is and yet there is a problem. People fail to imagine it properly. People fail to realiza that it is nothing but elementary calculation that they have already been doing since ages, only difference being that the things in the word problem have different names now! This in itself might be a good text box! Sample Problems Molecular masses of water, liquid bromine, sugar, salt and other such relevant and "exotic compounds! Note : Someone actually needs to start typing these problem sets! That might be me, that might be someone else who comes in at a later stage in the preparation of this book! The Mole The mole is the standard unit of measurement, under the International System of Units (SI), for amount of substance. It is defined as the amount of chemical substance that contains as many representative particles as in 12 grams of Carbon-12. Tell them bluntly in simpler English. Ask questions to the reader, that force him to think about the simple terms in the definition. question 1 question 2 question 3 Add a few introductory questions to exercise their brains, avoiding TMI/Too Much Information! Difference between number of atoms and moles of atoms. Avagadro's number and dozen, scores, tens, hundreds, lacs. Possibly a good place for a cartoon. **Cartoon! Introductory Questions How big Avagadro's number is! How small atoms are! Conversions! Concentration and amount Expand on the case of hot chocolate. More chocolatey and more chocolate powder needed. Good way to introduce concentration and relate it with molalities. (for idiots) Keep this a recurring theme throughout the intro text and in a few problems. More acid (can react with more base) and more acidic is a good example. More base and more basic. More colour required vs. more strongly coloured solution Need some sample problems! (for humans) A box text can be to introduce and relate to density, specific gravity, cost and extrapolating to intrinsic and extrinsic properties. (for rebels) Molarity Vs. Molality : The whole deal about thermal expansion. (for humans) and their implications in thermodynamics and a few interesting examples (for rebels)