# How are a mole and a dozen similar?

Jul 17, 2016

A mole is just a name given to describe how many 'things' there are.

#### Explanation:

It's not that confusing as it seems so let me give you an example.

A dozen, as you know, is a common term used to describe something that contains $12$ of something. It is commonly used to describe eggs.

A dozen eggs is just saying we have $12$ eggs. It doesn't even have to be eggs. It could be a dozen pencils, a dozen muffins, a dozen cars, etc. It is just known that a dozen means $12$ 'things'.

Similarly, a mole describes that there are $6.02 \cdot {10}^{23}$ molecules of something. So say I have $1$ mole of $\text{H"_2"O}$. This means I have $1$ mole of $\text{H"_2"O}$ and that means I have $6.02 \cdot {10}^{23}$ molecules of $\text{H"_2"O}$.

You can even use moles to describe how many hairs are on your head, how many moles of sand grains there are, etc; moles is just a name given to describe how many of 'something' you have.

It is more convenient for chemists to describe reactions and molecules by moles instead of saying, "We reacted $6.02 \cdot {10}^{23}$ molecules of $\text{H"_2"O}$ with $1.80 \cdot {10}^{24}$ molecules of $\text{HCl}$."