A MOLE OF MOLES Q. What would happen if you were to gather a mole (unit of measurement) of moles (the small furry critter) in one place? —Sean Rice A. THINGS GET A BIT gruesome. First, some definitions. ‘A mole is a unit. Its not a typical unit, though. Its really just a sum- I ber—like “dozen” or “billion.” If you have a mole of something, it means you have 602,214,129,000,000,000,000,000 of them (usually written 6.022% 10%). It's such a big number’ because it’s used for counting numbers of molecules, which there are a lot of. “Were AR wo Be HOLES. lone othe numberof stun in agra of hyeagen, Tes alo by chance, decent blip number of gains aad on Earth42 | WHAT IF? A-mole is also a type of burrowing mammal. There are a handful of types of moles, and some of them are truly horrifying.” = My be he So what would a mole of moles—6o2,214,129,000,000,000,000,000 ani- mals—look like? First, let's start with wild approximations. This is an example of what might go through my head before I even pick up a calculatos, when I'm just trying to get a sense of the quantities—the kind of calculation where ro, r,and 0.1 are all close enough that we can consider them equal: ‘A mole (the animal is small enough for me to pick up and throw! tose} Anything I can throw weighs 1 pound. One pound is x Kilogram. The number 602,214,129,000,000,000,000,000 looks about twice as long as a trillion, which. means it’s about a trillion trillion. I happen to remember that a trillion trillion kklograms is how much a planet weighs. 602214,129,000000000000,000 Perret }->_-—__——————__——+i 000,000,000,000 pee Pa eae ‘That's enough to tell us that we're talking about a pile of moles on the scale of 2 bape .vikipdin arg aik Pl CondlraspeA MOLE OF MOLES | 49 a planet. esa pretty rough estimate, since it could be offbyafactor of thousands in either direction. ‘Let's get some better numbers. ‘An eastern mole (Scalopus aquaticus) weighs about 75 grams, which means a mole of moles weighs: (6.022 x 10") x 75g ~ 4.52 x10" kg, “That's a litle over half the mass of our moon. ‘Mammals are largely water. A Kilogram of water takes up a liter of volume, so ifthe moles weigh 4.5220 kilograms, they take up about 4.5210" liters of ‘yolume, You might notice that we'e ignoring the pockets of space between the moles. In a moment, you'll see why. ‘The cube root of 4.5210" liters is 3562 kilometers, which means we're talking: about a ophere with a radius of aaro kilometers, ot a cube 2ax5 miles on each edge? “Ef these moles were released onto the Earth's surface, they'd All it up to 80 kilometers deep—just about to the (Former) edge of space: 9195 ‘SPACE, MANTLE iy ‘This smothering ocean of high-pressure meat would wipe ovt most life on the planet, which could—to reddie's horror—threaten the integrity of the DNS system. So doing this on Earth is definitely not an option. Instead, let's gather the moles in interplanetary space. Gravitational attrac- tion would pull them into a sphere. Meat doesn't compress very well so it would 5 Thats enon coinsidene Tv neve noticed efore—s cube mile happens tobe almow exactly pr oxic [sete so ecpere th» rediue of Xdlonetrs ha the same ve ab cube thats X meson each side| wat ire undergo only a litle bit of gravitational contraction, planet slightly larger than the Moon, > EARTH ‘The moleswould havea surface gravity of aboutone-sixtenth of Karth’—sim- ilar to that of Pluto. The planet would start off unifo 1 bit over room temperature—and the gravitational deep interior by a handful of degzecs. But this is where it gets weird. The mole planet would be a giant sphere of meat. It would have alo of latent energy (there are enough calories in the mole planet to support the Earth’ exe, rent population for 30 billion years). Normally, when onganic matter decomposes, icrceases much ofthat energy as heat. But throughout the majority ofthe plan fh interios the presse would be over 100 megapascal, whieh is high ‘enough {2 Rl all bacteria and sterilize the mole remains—leaving no mictoorganisme to break down the mole tissue, and weld end up with a mole rmly lukewarm — probably contraction would heat the Closer to the surfice, where the pressure would be lower, there would be an- other obstacle to decomposition the interior ofa mole planet would be lnwrig oxygen. Without oxygen, the usual decomposition couldn't happen, and the only bacteria that would be able to break down the moles would be thone that dont reavie: oxygen, While inefficient, this anaerobic decomposition can unlock quite a bit of heat. If continued unchecked, it would heat the planet to a boil. But the decomposition would be selflimitin, femperatures above about 60°C, so as the temperature went up, the bacteria would die off and the decomposition would slow. Throughout the planet, the spoke bodies would gradually break down into kerogen, a mush of organie meter that would—if the planet were hotter—eventually fort oi ‘The outer surfice of the planet would radiate heat into space and freeze 16: Few bacteria can survive at Becaut interio in the} bubble decease nically Eve cool en would out int ice IX. All Ide smal bic are at | human ‘The weld ces with sr long, in Avogad Ifyc 4 Noseitmole A MOLE OF MOLES Because the moles form a literal fur coat, when frozen they would insulate the interior of the planet and slow the loss of heat to space. However, the flow of heat jn the liquid interior would be dominated by convection, Plumes of hot meat and bubbles of trapped gases like methane—along with the air from the hangs of the deceased moles—would periodically rise through the mole crust and erupt volea- nically from the surface, geyser of death blasting mole bodies frec of the planet. Eventually, after centuries or millennia of turmoil, the planet would calm and cool enough that it would begin to freeze all the way through. The deep interior would be under such high pressure that a it cooled, the water would crystallize out into exotic forms of ice such as ice TIT and ice V, and eventually ice TI and ice IX! All told, this isa pretty bleak picture, Fortunately, there's a better approach, I don’t have any reliable numbers for global mole population (or small mam- imal biomass in general), but we'll take a shot in the dark and estimate that there are at least a few dozen mice, rats, voles, and other small mammals for every human. ‘There might be a billion habitable planets in our galaxy. If we colonized them, ‘weld certainly bring mice and rats with us.Ifjust one in a hundred were populated ‘with small mammals in numbers similar to Berths after a few million years—not Jong, in evolutionary time—the total number that have ever lived would surpass “Avogadro's number. Ifyou want a mole of moles, build a spaceship. Sed Sex s