There is an old quip ... "About every 40th breath, each human being on the earth takes in one of the Argon molecules from Julius Caesar's last dying breath." Let's see if this assertion could be true.
One gram-mole of a substance contains about 6 x 1023 molecules. This number is called Avogadro's number. Although Avogadro's number seems quite large, it doesn't represent such a large quantity of matter. The air in the room in which you are now sitting has about one mole of air molecules (mostly oxygen and nitrogen molecules) in a volume of 22 liters, or .022 m3. (This is the volume of a cube roughly 28 cm on each side.) Argon makes up about 1% of the atmosphere. Assume that all the Argon molecules in Julius' last breath are now evenly distributed over the earth.
Estimate the volume occupied by one of these Argon molecules and the number of breaths that that volume represents.
Be sure to write out your assumptions and calculations in your response. Try to do this estimate on the spot! Remember you are doing a rough estimate, so p = 3, .022 is about 1/50, etc. Here's some useful info to make your estimate easier.
Good estimation to you!
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