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According to Avogadro's hypothesis, two samples of gas of equal volume, at the same temperature and pressure, contain the same number of molecules. But is there any proof of this? We can't possibly count the total molecules in two different gases of equal volumes at equal temperature and pressure. Then how did we arrive at this hypothesis? If not experemental, is there any Mathematical proof of this statement?

Even the exact number of atoms or molecules in 1 mole of any substance is known and is termed as Avogadro's Number. How was is found? How did we know the exact number of molecules present in 1 mole of a substance? Please provide the derivation if any.

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Solution

1 mole =602,214,150,000,000,000,000,000 Avogadro's Number

Avogadro's number, the number of particles in a mole, can be experimentally determined by first "counting" the number of atoms in a smaller space and then scaling up to find the number of particles that would have a mass equal to the atomic or molecular mass in grams. Here is some real data from which Avogadro's number can be determined.
X-Ray diffraction studies show that gold consists of a repeating atomic arrangement where the repeating unit (called a cell unit) is a cube containing 4 gold atoms. Each side of the cube has a length of 4.08x10-8 cm. The density of gold is 19.3 g / cm3 and its atomic mass is 197.

v= side3= (4.08 x 10-8cm)3= 6.79 x 10-23cm3
197g
X 1 cm3 X 4 atoms=6.013 x 1023 atoms/mole (pretty close)
mol
19.3g6.79 x 10-23cm3
The History of the Term"Mole"
The Avogadro constant is named after the early nineteenth century Italian scientist Amedeo Avogadro, who is credited (1811) with being the first to realize that the volume of a gas (strictly, of an ideal gas) is proportional to the number of atoms or molecules. The French chemist Jean Baptiste Perrin in 1909 proposed naming the constant in honor of Avogadro. American chemistry textbooks picked it up in the 1930's followed by high school textbooks starting in the 1950s.
The unit "mole" was introduced into chemistry around 1900 by Ostwald, and he originally defined this unit in terms of gram. Gram is a unit of mass; but what is the mole a unit of? Ostwald did not say; however, several years later, he did make it clear that the concept of mole should be linked to the ideal gas.

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