How are there are more atoms in a cup of water than there are cups of water in the oceans of the world ?
In: Chemistry
Here’s one from a book I just read: if the water molecules in a single teaspoon of water were the size of popcorn kernels, they would cover the entire United States nine miles deep.
Atoms are really small.
What’s more amazing is the fact that more than 99% of an atom is empty. The core nucleus only take up about 1/100,000 of the space and the electrons are way far out on the edges.
The entire material universe compressed is about one grain of sand in a sandwich bag.
So a cup of water is about 236.588237 milliliters, using “cup” as its standard definition as a unit of measurement.
The [NOAA estimates](https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/oceanwater.html) the world’s oceans contain 321 million cubic miles of water. Converted to milliliters, that’s
1,338,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 milliliters.
So, that means there are
5,655,395,280,000,000,000,000 cups of water in the world’s oceans.
One mole (a chemistry measurement) of water contains 6.02 x 10^23 molecules of water. Each water molecule contains 3 atoms, so that’s 1.806 x 10^24 atoms in a mole of water. A mole is equal to 18 milliliters, so in one cup of water there are 13.1437909 moles, which is equal to
23,737,686,400,000,000,000,000,000 atoms in one cup of water.
So
23,737,686,400,000,000,000,000,000 atoms, vs
5,655,395,280,000,000,000,000 cups of water.
You can see which number is bigger: there are almost 4,200 times more atoms in a cup of water then there are cups of water in the world’s oceans.
Water is H20. 2 hydrogen and one oxygen molecules. Hydrogen is basically the smallest thing that exists and is still considered an element. They are very very tiny. Much tinier on comparison than a cup of water is compared to an ocean. So tiny in fact that even with our best scientific instruments you can only vaguely see it. A cup is so big in comparison that you can see it from space with google earth.
Atoms are very very small.
Compared to an atom a cup of water is a HUGE volume.
There are roughly 8.36 x 10^24 molecules in a cup of water. Each of those is three atoms.
Latest Answers