Mole Day 2025. From Avogadro’s number to Robin Goodfellow
23rd October is Mole Day. The mole is scientific measurement in chemistry
The mole is one of the seven base units in the International System of Units (SI), representing a bridge between the atomic and macroscopic worlds. It allows chemists to count atoms and molecules by weighing them a task otherwise impossible due to their tiny size. By celebrating Mole Day, educators highlight the importance of Avogadro’s number (6.022 × 10²³) and its role in chemical equations, stoichiometry, and molecular calculations….
I studied chemistry to GCSE level back in the day but don’t remember the Mole. Possibly because the chemistry teacher, a Mr Davies, was a fervent Communist. He spent lessons lecturing us on the glories of the Russian Revolution, while we, the students, busied ourselves with setting off small chemical explosions in the classroom.
The mole of course appears in another guise, in Shakespeare and Marx as Robin Goodfellow the old mole of revolution. There is I think a link between the scientific and historical uses of the mole, in the sense that both look at ways of understanding and hence changing the world
In the signs that bewilder the middle class, the aristocracy and the poor prophets of regression, we do recognise our brave friend, Robin Goodfellow, the old mole that can work in the earth so fast, that worthy pioneer — the Revolution
Marx, Speech to the People’s Paper dinner, 14th April 1856
I have difficulty picturing you as a naughty schoolboy.
Wasn’t the Red Mole an IMG publication? I seem to remember my sister selling it!