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Mike
Lv 4
Mike asked in Science & MathematicsChemistry · 1 decade ago

Intro to chemistry question?

A typical dust particle has a diameter of about 10.0 um (micrometers). If 1.0 mol (6.02x10^23) dust particles were laid end to end along the equator of the Earth, how many times would they encircle the planet? The circumference of the Earth at the equator is 40,076 km.

Any ideas? I'm trying to solve this for my Chem homework.

I converted 10.0 micrometers to meters - 1.0x10^-5 meters. I then multiplied this by Avogadro's # to get 6.02x10^18 meters. I then divided the Earth's circumference in meters (40,076,000m) by the answer above. Did I do this correctly?? The answer doesn't make sense to me. (I got 6.66x10^-12)

Thanks for your help!

1 Answer

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  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    That sounds pretty much right. I think where you are going wrong is that you are dividing the circumference of the earth by 6.02x10^18 meters. You should instead be doing 6.02x10^18 meters divided by 40,076,000m.

    That gives an answer of 150214592274.67811158798283261803 times or 150200000000 time (4sf)

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