July 7, 2025

Complete History of the Avogadro Number

Around 0:50 into the video, our meandering narrator mentions that he wasn't able to find a single source with correct, complete information on the history of the Avogadro Number...which makes me wish he'd provided sources for his information. Otherwise, how do we know that what he's telling us is correct?

(As an aside, I've always called it Avogadro's Number. Maybe the the and lack of possessive is a British thing. I'll admit that I don't remember how my professors at the University of Aberdeen referred to it.)

I will say that this is an amazingly thorough and likely correct history of the development of the concept and number of the moles. It goes through from Democritus through the Karlsruhe Congress and all the way to the modern measurement of Avogadro's number via a nearly perfect sphere of silicon.

I need to watch this video a few more times until I'm more familiar with all the steps in this development so I can tell the story to my students.

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