A Drop in the Ocean

• Damon Diemente ^[1]
  1. [1] Trinity School
• Localización: Journal of chemical education, ISSN 0021-9584, Vol. 77, Nº 8 (August), 2000, págs. 1010-1010
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Teachers of high-school chemistry customarily use calculations done as in-class exercises or as demonstrations to impress their students with the enormity of Avogadro's number and the concomitant miniscularity of atoms and molecules. This article presents and works out one such calculation. We are asked to imagine filling the entire volume of all the oceans on Earth a scoop at a time, using a 100-mL beaker as a ladle. We find that the beaker holds 170 times as many water molecules as there are beakerfuls of water in the oceans.