A Snowy Globe

How many water ( H 2 O ) ({H}_{2}O) molecules are in a fist-size snowball? Give your answer as the order of magnitude .

The precise size of a fist should not affect the order of magnitude.


The answer is 25.

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2 solutions

Shabarish Ch
Sep 6, 2014

First of all, I want to make it known that I have never seen a real snowball, or snowfall for that matter, being in a tropical country like India.

Molecular mass of H 2 O H_2O is 18 u . Therefore, one mole of H 2 O H_2O containing 6.022 × 1 0 23 6.022 \times 10^{23} molecules weighs 18 g.

I guessed there might be some 180 grams of water in a snowball. (Why 180? Just because it makes the calculations easier).

So, there are 10 moles of H 2 O H_2O in 180 g of snowball. The number of molecules in 10 moles of anything is 6.022 × 1 0 24 6.022 \times 10^{24} which means order of magnitude is 25 \boxed{25}

The problem being extremely ambiguous so I guessed. The order of magnitude of Avogadro's number is 23 23 . Assuming a snowball is around 100 100 grams this means the order of magnitude is 25 \boxed{25} .

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