Flying molecules

"Let's go home!" Elie recommended to the team.

"Why?" They all asked in unison."Don't we have more work with the molecules to turn them into yarn?"

"Yes, we have more work with them, but I wouldn't have thought we'd do it so fast, and I only booked the spinning-mill for the afternoon. We can't use that before scheduled, so we have a lot of time. We could relax a bit, eat lunch, and return. Sorry for the plus shower!" She laughed on the expression of Conrad's face. The boy didn't like showering despite its short time and convenience.

"You girls, want take a bath all the time!" He murmured, but nobody took his comment to the hearth. "What the heck do you need to wash so much?" He looked at the team's another male part, but K.O. shook his head. There were inconveniences that simply need to be endured.

After they got rid of the black residue, all of them headed to the caravan together. Conrad was immersed in his thoughts, while his sister and Elie were talking about mining Methane. Valerie still didn't want to go back to the cave, but she found the process of making Methane to inconvenient.

"We could go to the frozen waterfield next time" Eli was thinking loud.

"I wanted to mine Methane, not water!"Valerie laughed, but there were some bitterness in her voice. She resented that Elie was already teasing her too.

"It was not a joke at all." She said seriously. "In the frozen places the Methane is trapped in the ice. Have you ever seen videos on the net, when ice is burning? That is the cause. So when the ice is melting as bit, we could collect a lot of Methan. Although you have to fly after them from time to time."

"Flyyy?!"

"There are little ones, that could fly..." Elie wanted to tell the whole storie, but Conrad suddenly cut into their conversation.

"K.O.!" Conrad cried suddenly.

"Yes?"

"The Hydrogens were floating up in the greenhouse, and the Ethenes were everywhere around us. Why?" He asked curiously. "They are both gases. Why could one of them flying high, while the other couldn't?"

"They are both gases, but whether it ascends or descends depends on its mass." He replied.

"Why?" Valerie asked that time. The girls noticed Conrad's request, and they wanted to get involved, too.

"In this Island, it is because of the gravity, and the molar mass of the gases." K.O. told them. " In the real world it is because of the atmosphere."

"The molar mass is the weight of a bunch of something." Elie said, when she noticed the kids' puzzled expression. "When you collect 6*10^23 pieces of something, that is a mole."

"Something?"

"Anything. In the real world we only use for counting the little ones, because they are so small, comparing to us. It would be very troublesome to count hem one by one. If you count them as a mole, it is more convenient. You could hold mole of Sulfur in your hand, for example. But here… a mole of Sulfur is as big as the Himalaya in the real world."

"If I collected a mole of pebbles, how big would that be at home?" Conrad asked.

"Approximately half of the Earth..." K.O. said. The twins dropped their chins in surprise. Yet a pebble is so small!

"Is a mole such a large number?" Valerie was stunned.

"Rather, the atoms are so small back home." Elie told them. "Moreover, someone also calculated that seven and a half billion people altogether don't have a mole of hair!"

Everyone laughed at that, since babies, and bald people don't have any hair on their heads.

"That scientist had too much free time!" K.O. said, and returned to the original question. "Do you remember when we weighed the Hydrogen molecules?"

The kids nodded.

"There were 2 to 6 of weight, depending on the group." Conrad said.

"If you want to turn them into moles, one mole of each of them would be 2 to 6 grams."

The twins were amazed. They hardly believed K.O.'s words.

"It was so many pieces of Hydrogen molecules, and such a tiny weight..."

"Atoms are so small in the real world compared to humans." Elie nodded. "One mole of Hydrogen molecule, made of Protiums, is only 2 grams. It is the molar mass. We use it in 2 gram/mole form."

"And how do we know the molar mass of an atom? Do we always have to measure each one?" Conrad asked, a little saddened. Everything seemed to be more and more complicated, not simpler.

"It is not necessary, it has already been done before us, so we just have to look at the data of the kingdoms." K.O. patted the boy's back.

Both children took out their hand devices to check that what the adults had said was true.

"It's really here at the data of the Hydrogen Kingdom." Valerie said. "But it is just one gram/mole, not two!" There was a slight rebuke in her voice.

"Because the map provides only the molar weight of one atom of Hydrogen. That is only one gram/mole." Elie answered for the girl's unspoken question. "If you want to know the molecule's molar mass, you just have to double the amount, since one molecule of Hydrogen is consist of two atoms."

"And what has the molar mass got to do with where the molecules go?" Conrad asked.

"If a molecule has a molar mass of less than 29 grams/mole, it will ascend. If it is larger than 29 grams/mole, the molecule will descend."

"Since Hydrogen molecules weigh only 2 grams/mole, they always go up!" Valerie cheered that she had found the reason for the caravan's flying. K.O. nodded, that she had been right.

"And what about the molar mass of Ethene? It has no kingdom, so its molar mass isn't shown by the map!" Conrad asked, with a bit of anger.

"Oh, it is easy. You just have to calculate the molar mass of the molecules!"

"Calculate...?" The twins cried out in pain. Mathematics again! Would they never get rid of it? However, the adults did not realize their torment either. Or they didn't want to.

"First of all, you just have to know the chemical formula of the Ethene." Elie said. "Do you know that?"

"C2H4." Conrad answered finally.

"It means, the Ethene consist of two Carbon atoms and four Hydrogen atoms, does it?" The kids nodded. "We have already knew the molar mass of Hydrogen atom is 1 gram/mole. What is the molar mass of one Carbon atom?"

The kids turned back to their hand devices to find out this information.

"12 gram/mole."Valerie was the faster.

"Now all you have to do is multiply the molar mass of the carbon atom by two and the hydrogen atom by four and then add the two numbers."

The guys started to calculate the requested data. With the calculator on their hand device. And the adults swallowed what they had to say that this calculation was so simple that it would have to go by heart.

"28" Conrad was the first that time.

"28 gram/mole." Elie corrected. "The molar mass of Ethene is 28 gram/mole. One mole of it weights 28 gram."

"It is around the 29 gram/mole barrier, so that's why they where floating everywhere." K.O. smiled, as he was remembered Valerie's effort to collect them.

"Couldn't we even fill the balloon with it on top of the car?" Valerie asked curiously.

"Of course we could! Ethene is in a gaseous state, so the balloon can be filled with them. We just couldn't fly with them in the balloon. It requires little ones with much lighter molar masses."

"For example?" Both of the twins asked in unison.

"Try search a few ones!" K.O. winked at them.

The kids turned back to their hand devices again and immersed in the task. They didn't pay so much attention to the environment, and they almost bang to a caravan, so Elie suggested that they should continue the searching at home. They got home in no time. The twins sat down to the table, and immersed in searching and counting again. The didn't even want to eat.

"Methane is 16 gram/mole, so we could fly with them." Conrad said.

"We could fly with Helium atoms too. It has 4 gram/mole of molar mass. Radon is also a Noble gas, but it has 222 gram/mole of molar mass, so there's no wonder, they were bouncing on the ground!" Valerie was amazed.

"We also could fly with the Acetylene, but we couldn't with Ethane." Conrad looked at K.O..

The old man nodded.

"You are right. But this balloon was designed to hold Hydrogen molecules in it. So I use Hydrogens for the flying."

"Only? Isn't it a bit boring?" Valerie asked.

"I love them." K.O. blushed.

"We didn't really find any other molecules to fly with." Valerie hugged the old man sympathetically.

"But only because you haven't been to much of the island yet!" Elie told them, and gave them chocolate bars to eat.

"Why? Are there other gases used for aviation?"

"Oh, there are plenty of them. " Elie said, and the twins at once began to demand that she say such molecules. But she shook her head. "You will see them soon, by yourselves!" She said mysteriously.