CPSC120 Assignment 1

A Mole of Moles

A mole is both a unit of measurement and a small subterranean mammal. The unit of measure is used to represent amounts at the molecular level. Therefore, a single mole is a very large number, 6. 02214129 × 1023. What happens if a mole is used to represent something we can see, like the mammal of the same name?

Details

Create a program that prints information on a mole of moles. The program should calculate and print:

  1. how much a mole of moles weighs in grams. Assume all of the moles are star-nosed moles which weigh approximately 55 grams.

  2. how large is a mole of moles is in liters. Since moles are mostly water, assume that a mole has the density of water, 1kg / L. Use your result from the previous calculation in this calculation.

  3. the diameter, in meters, of a mole of moles packed into a sphere. A sphere has volume v = (4 / 3)πr3 where v is the volume in meters cubed and r is the radius of the sphere. There are 1000 liters in a cubic meter. Use your result from the previous calculation in this calculation.

  4. the diameter of the moon, in meters, as a basis for comparison of how large a mole of moles is. You don’t have to calculate this, just research it.

The program should perform all of the necessary calculations (i.e. you should not do them on a calculator and simply print the result). All output should be nicely formatted so that it is easy to read.

Submission

Test: Submit your test file as a zip file on the course Inquire site by 9AM on Monday September 10th.

Code: Submit your code as a zip file on the course Inquire site by 5PM on Friday September 14th.

Extra

A Different Mole: Research the average weight of a different species of mole and print the calculations for both the new mole and the star nosed mole. Also print how many times larger or smaller the new mole is in comparison to the star-nosed mole in each calculation.

What if?: The idea for this assignment came from the web site xkcd what if? which tries to answer hypothetical questions with physics. Read through some of the other questions and create a program that performs the calculations in it.