A mole by any other name

Tag line:  How to turn a school chemistry project into an exercise in hilarity.

It's Mole Day - 10/23, where from 6:02 a.m. until 6:02 p.m., we celebrate the definition of mole, which is 6.02 x 10^23 particles (Avogadro's number). 

The geek shall inherit the Earth:  Screengrab from the National Mole Day Foundation. 

My child's bonus assignment in chemistry was to creatively represent this day using a crafted mole (as in, the mammal, which is not actually a rodent), akin to this assignment.  It's the kind of project that engages the entire family, especially a family of science nerds.  There's always room for sock puppets! 

At first, we came up with "Guaca-mole-e", which would have Avocado's number of particles.  But that just seemed so obvious that we concluded it must have been done many times before.  Checking the internet this morning as I'm writing this post, I see that we were correct.

We settled on this:

A Mole in One, because one mole has Avogolfer's number of particles.  Even while dressed in golfing plaid.

Isn't that cute??  He's got his own little mole hole in the form of a tin can, which began its life with somewhat less than Avogadro's number of garbanzo beans. 

The clerk in Lowes looked at us like we were crazy when we asked him to cut us a single linear foot of Astroturf off the ten-foot mega-role in the outdoor carpeting section.  We have nine leftover feet if anyone would like to have it.  Free to a good home!

If you know anything about moles, you'll immediately conclude that, while his star nose is mildly convincing (for a sock puppet), his button eyes are too large.  But this particular mole needs large eyes if he's to perceive the full wisdom of science, so there you have it.

Regrettably, Google did not post up a Mole Day GoogleDoodle this morning.  They managed to hit their recent Schrodinger-themed Doodle out of the park, but dropped the mole ball where Avogadro is concerned.

Remember this one? Schrodinger's birthday bash, literally. 

Screengrabbed from Slate. 

In lieu of art, you could always peruse this collection of Mole Day gift ideas.  Have a good Wednesday.
:-)