Happy Mole Day

A little late, but Happy Mole Day everyone.|||What;'s that?|||It's a day to celebrate Happy Moles.

I personally can't tell when they are or not.|||This is some kind of a juvenile thing, isn't it?|||According to Wikipedia (taken with an 18-wheeler full of salt, mind):


Quote:








Mole Day is an unofficial holiday celebrated among chemists on October 23, between 6:02 AM and 6:02 PM, making the date 6:02 10/23 in the American style of writing dates. The time and date are derived from Avogadro's number, which is approximately 6.02�(10^23)*, defining the number of particles (atoms or molecules) in one mole of substance, one of the seven base SI units.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mole_Day

* = I know, the wiki article shows that formula differently, but vBulletin doesn't do superscript, it seems. |||It's a bunch of crap. I am a chemist, I work with dozens of chemists, and none of them ever heard of this 'holiday'. Not enough days in the year to support all the nonsensical holidays they keep dredging up.

My daughter had to make a mole for chemistry class to celebrate Mole Day. This was a graded assignment, where they had to make a stuffed animal mole to somehow depict their chosen element. Fun, maybe, but how does that teach chemistry? What rot.|||Is Mole Day really this unpopular? Ah well...|||Quote:




My daughter had to make a mole for chemistry class to celebrate Mole Day. This was a graded assignment, where they had to make a stuffed animal mole to somehow depict their chosen element. Fun, maybe, but how does that teach chemistry? What rot.




Wait, what? Stuffed animal mole that depicts an "element". So going back to the good old days of earth/wind/water/fire? ...or going by actual chemistry and making it look like umm... hydrogen? No wait, mercury. Hmm... lead? I really don't know. Sounds weird no matter how you look at it.|||Its just not as popular as Groundhog day because of its misleading name.|||Quote:








Wait, what? Stuffed animal mole that depicts an "element". So going back to the good old days of earth/wind/water/fire? ...or going by actual chemistry and making it look like umm... hydrogen? No wait, mercury. Hmm... lead? I really don't know. Sounds weird no matter how you look at it.




She made a stuffed mole out of blue fabric, gave it some big human-looking teeth to depict it as the element Fluorine. Y'know, because fluoride helps your teeth stay strong...

Hey, I'm not against cutesy stuff for school. It's just that to me, that should have been an extra-credit optional assignment, not a mandatory part of the regular curriculum.