Friday, September 24, 2010

6,0221367*10^23

6,0221367*10^23 is the so-called Avogadro's number (named after Lorenzo Romano Amedeo Carlo Avogadro). Such a number is extremely difficult to comprehend, therefore a lot of awe-inspiring illustrations have been created to help visualize its enormous sizer.

A few quite common examples: 01 an Avogadro's number of standard soft drink cans would cover the surface of the Earth to a depth of over 200 miles; 02 if you had an Avogadro's number of unpopped popcorn kernels, and spread them across the United States of America, the country would be covered in popcorn to a depth of over 9 miles; 03 if we were able to count atoms at the rate of 10 million per second, it would take about 2 billion years to count the atoms in one mole.