By Ranjan Bhaduri
Oct. 23, (THAINDIAN NEWS) The day is October the 23rd and its once again time for celebrating ‘Mole Day‘. There are lots of people who don’t know what mole day is. It does not celebrate the being of little rodents that dig deep nor does it celebrate skin moles. Rather mole day is celebrated for the ‘Avogadro’s Number’ that is 6.02 x 1023. This number helps us to find how many molecules (moles) does one gram of any substance contains, and basically relates to chemistry.

However, mole day is an unofficial holiday, and is celebrated in the schools of US of A, Canada, and South Africa to get their students interested in the subject of chemistry. It is also celebrated among the chemists. The celebrations are held generally between 6.02 a.m and 6.02 p.m. Smalandsstenar in Sweden began this celebration from the year 2007.

A chemistry teacher, Maurice Oehler from Wisconsin saw an article that was published in the early 1980s. The article appeared in ‘The Science Teacher’. She got so inspired by the article that she started a mole day foundation known as ‘NMDF’ or National Mole Day Foundation. It was established on 15th May 1991. The teacher was originally from Prairie du Chien and is now retired.

Today, students across schools celebrated this day by running 6.02 times across their tracks and at precisely 6.02 a.m. The students who run generally belong to the chemistry class. ‘Molar express’ being the theme for celebrating mole day this year, is creating quite a confusion among people. Also the mole of the year has been given to Sarah Toman from Muskegon, MI.