This year National Mole Day will be observed on October 23 from 6.02 am to 6.02 pm to commemorate Avogadro's Number (6.023 × 10²³).

The entire week is celebrated as National Chemistry Week to honor the people related to Chemistry. Why celebrate only for a day, right?

The idea originated in the 1980s and gained popularity in May 1991 when a non-profit organization National Mole Day Foundation was set up by an American High school teacher, Maurice Oehler.

Hmm... I am not the Mole you are looking for today but I am all ears for this one!

In simple terms, a mole is a measuring unit in chemistry. One mole of any substance is 1 × ( 6.023 × 10²³ ) particles of that substance.

For example, 1 mole of Oxygen gas molecule contains 6.023 × 10²³ molecules of Oxygen.

Mole is used in measuring quantity even though other units like kilograms, grams, etc are present. This is due to the inconvenience posed by those other larger units. It would be like measuring a gram of sugar in kilos, which, as you must have understood, seems confounding and impractical.

Mole concept is significant in stoichiometry, a branch of chemistry that gathers accurate quantitative data to carry out chemical reactions in the desired manner. For almost all the lifestyle products we use- from fancy, fragrant soaps to our basic dantmanjan, stoichiometry comes into play, and with it arrives the Mole Concept.

However, the value of the mole is too large to be used in daily life. Considering the definition of a mole, we can calculate that if a sphere of radius 1 meter has to cover the entire volume of the Earth, then only 0.00042 moles of spheres of radius 1 meter will be required. On the other hand, moles of atoms can be packed in a chemistry lab.

In chemistry, it helps us understand the properties of gases, to differentiate between elements and compounds.

Chemistry is a science that is inseparable from our lives. Our entire body has its own set of chemistry. Although the mole concept cannot provide its direct link in our daily life, it is significant in measuring atomic particles.

Mole Concept is just a small part of chemistry and represents a small contribution of chemists in our life. National Chemistry Week is a community-based program of the American Chemical Society (ACS). The celebration is widespread with different themes for thirty days, beginning from the mid of October (October 17 to October 23) till November (till November 8).

This year, in 2020, the themes included various topics from the subject like- reaction rates, glues, and adhesives, metal, chemistry and health, polymer chemistry, soaps and detergents, chemistry is everywhere, etc.

Today, chemists can maneuver atoms one by one with a scanning tunneling microscope, and other techniques of what has become known as nanotechnology are in rapid development. The history of chemistry is an extraordinary story and Mole Concept is a miniature part of it.