Re: pinhole compounds ... pure substances?

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From: George Fosselius (fosselg@albany.k12.ca.us)
Date: Mon Dec 02 2002 - 10:42:22 PST 

Message-ID: <003001c29a32$8d614680$079884d1@albany.k12.ca.us>
From: "George Fosselius" <fosselg@albany.k12.ca.us>
Subject: Re: pinhole compounds ... pure substances?
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 10:42:22 -0800

I always started out the elements,compounds, mixtures unit with with a
binary definition:
Pure substances versus mixtures.
I made molecules of elements a special case of molecules.
Elements are those substances whose molecules contain only ONE KIND of atom.
*
So you have Cu, H2, O2 and O3 and P4 all fitting the element case.
Compounds had to have MORE THAN ONE KIND of atom, i.e., H2O and H2O2
Then, pure substances (both compounds and their special subset, elements)
have ONE KIND of molecule and mixtures have MORE THAN ONE KIND of molecule.

* It follows that I refer to the smallest particle of a substance as its
molecule, which means the vast majority of elements have molecules of only
one atom.

This may confuse at first. It may confuse forever. But it's my discrepant
logic to make students think.
George Fosselius

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