The Joys of Modern Chemistry...

Ha, I bet with that title you thought I was going to write something about drugs. Well, I'm not. I'm going to writing about the very basic, freshman (maybe even remedial) level chemistry course that I am taking from the University of Wisconsin that is currently kicking my ass up and down the halls of higher learning.

First things first, I think it’s awesome that in today's world I can start a course in Illinois, keep working on it in Michigan and then in Pennsylvania, and when I finish it my certificate will come from Wisconsin. I've covered damn near the entire Big 10 just with this class.
Anyway, Its a 100-level course. It should be easy. But it’s not. I'm sure I'm not dumb. At least that's what I keep telling myself. But the proof is in the pudding and Avogadro’s number is fucking up my pudding man!

So, I'm currently trying to sort out how to convert between mols and atoms, mass and mols, mass, mols and atoms, molar mass, compound molar mass and some other shit that has graciously slipped my mind. Stoichiometry which I know is a word, but apparently but the dictionary on this program doesn't think so.

Now here I sit with my periodic table, and my print outs of the book and my subscription to Chegg which is basically a service designed to pay someone else to answer your homework. Fucking brilliant. I wish we had that when I was in high school. Probably would’ve been a game changer. Then again I might have just been really lazy and not done a damn thing with it. Luckily I’m an adult now and I have to pay for this shit, so I do the work.
Okay, that might be a little bit of bullshit. I did have to purchase an extension. So, I do the work, but I must pay extra for more time. I’m not going to say that it’s a good thing that such a mechanism exists, but I suppose given that it’s a 100 level course and I’m not going to be put in charge of the formula for the rocket fuel that’s going to get us to Mars I think it’s a forgivable sin.

Needless to say, and this is question that has been rolling around in my head for a while. I haven’t bothered to even attempt to try to ascertain the answer since it involves chemistry and I imagine that it would hurt my feeble little mind even further. But here’s the question….
Avogadro’s number is the number of particles in one mole of any substance. It’s a gigantic number. For example, one mol of pencil erasers would cover the entire earth’s surface to a depth of 500 meters. THAT IS ABSOLUTELY INSANE!!!

Now how in the hell did he figure that out in 1811 (Avogadro’s constant) and how the hell did they update it to Avogadro’s number in 1909?

We have computers that can-do math that no human could do. They can do math in an instant that there’s not enough paper at Staples to write out by hand. Does anyone think about this kind of stuff, or are you guys smart enough to avoid the headache?