A mole of M&M's would fill how many holes the size of Lake Michigan?

Answer 1

Say an M&M is 5 cubic millimetres in volume, and together had a packing geometry occupying 50% (both conservatice figures). Each litre would contain about 2000 M&M's. (This is probably way too high, but sufficient for our purposes). Each cubic metre (1,000 litres) would contain 2 million M&M's. (2 X 10^6). Each cubic Kilometre would contain 2 X 10^18 M&M's.
Now, Dividing the number of molecules in a mole (approx 6 X 10^23) by our figure for M&M's per cubic Kilometre, we arrive at the figure of 3 X 10^5 cubic kilometres.

The volume of Lake michigan is a tad under 5 X 10^3 cubic kilometres. Therefore our mole of M&M's would occupy approximately 60 Lake Michigans.

This is an excellent demonstration of the small size of a molecule. It would make a good science project, to count the number of M&M's in a litre beaker, and then run the calculations through more precisely.

Edit: Changed my earlier figure from 10^12 M&Ms to 10^18, because there are 10^9 cubic metres in a cubic km, not 10^3.

Answer 2

A mole = 6.02 X 10^23 particles so, you would find the volume of the lake, find the volume of 1 M&M, multiply the volume of the M&M by a mole, divide the volume of lake by that number.