Question
Question: Weighing 3104 carats (1 carat=200 mg), the Cullinan diamond was the largest natural diamond ever fou...
Weighing 3104 carats (1 carat=200 mg), the Cullinan diamond was the largest natural diamond ever found. How many carbon atoms were present in the stone?
Solution
The largest gem quality diamond ever found was Cullinan diamond. It weighs around 3106.75 carats and was named after Thomas Cullinan, who was the chairman of the mine from where this diamond for the first time was discovered.
Complete step by step answer:
Various sizes and cuts of the Cullinan diamond is produced, and is the largest cut diamond in the world. It is also regarded as the crown diamond.
There are 9 types of the Cullinan diamonds which exist in nature and are numbered as I, II, III and so on the numbering is done as per the Roman system. The weight of each and every diamond varies a lot and is the characteristic feature used to differentiate each form of the diamond.
Usually the number of the carbon atoms is determined in the context of the Avogadro’s number and the gram molecular mass of the carbon atom which is 12.
The proportionality factor that relates the number of the constituents of the particles in a sample with its amount of the substance in the given sample is known as Avogadro’s number and is the proportionality constant. Its numeric value is 6.023×1023.It is a constant and is usually calculated in the SI units of mol.
As given in the question:
Mass of the stone = 3104×200
=620800 mg=620.8 g
Thus the number of the carbon atoms in the weighted amount will be:Gram atomic massMass in gram×6.023×1023
=12620.8×6.023×1023=3.12×1025
Note:
The most abundant isotope of the carbon is the carbon 12 and is around 98.93% in nature and the abundance of this isotope of carbon in nature is because of the process by which the stars are created in the universe, such process is called the triple alpha process.