Talk:Amount of substance

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This article was nominated for deletion on 2005-10-24. The result of the discussion was keep. An archived record of this discussion can be found here.

[edit] Message to Ed Cormany

Ed. May I ask your reasons for redirecting _Amount of substance_ to _Mole (unit)_ ? The former is a physical quantity; the latter is a unit for measuring the physical quantity. As such they are very different and, from the physical perspective, we need two different articles. We have this with _Length_ and _Metre_, _Mass_ and _Kilogram_, _Time_ and _Second_, _Temperature_ and _Kelvin_, etc. etc. All of these are Physical Quantities and their respective SI base units. Thanks Ian Cairns 21:19, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Ian, when I created the redirect every piece of information that was present in the amount of substance article was also present in the mole article, sometimes word-for-word. As such, it seemed redundant to me and I redirected it. If you have some additional content to add to amount of substance to make it a better standalone article, please edit over the redirect. Even if you feel that the redirect is inappropriate and should simply be reverted to the previous page edit, go ahead. Be bold in editing pages; that's what I was when I first created the redirect. —Ed Cormany 00:38, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Ed, Thanks for that. I'm happy to revert it. The physical quantity and the unit belong to different categories within the same subject area, and it helps to separate the descriptions as much as possible. Some overlap is unavoidable. However, it may well be that there is some redistribution of content possible between the articles, and I'll action this. Ian Cairns 11:14, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Substance or Matter?

[edit] Amount rather than quantity

The existence of this article is necessitated by the failure to use the term Avogadro's number as the name of the physical quantity identified by the chemical unit mole (unit), and also by the unfortunate use of the term in NIST and BIPM publications. Using the term "amount" requires the additional explanation that it really means "quantity", and that it does not refer to mass, neither of which would have been required if the the terms "quantity of particles" or "number of particles" had been used instead. --Blainster 17:49, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Votes for deletion

• Keep. The keepers of our standards insist on making a distinction. This is made clear in both BIPM's SI brochure [1] and in NIST's Guide for the Use of the Internaiotnal System of Units (SI)[2]. Gene Nygaard 19:30, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I see that the term "amount of substance" is used in the NIST guide under 8.6.1 here but was unable to readily find it in the BIPM site. Nevertheless, the term itself is ambiguous and thus inaccurate. What the writers intend by using the term "amount of substance" is actually "number of particles", for which the defined quantity would be Avogadro's number. I agree that the distinction you refer to does exist between the number or quantity of particles and the units (mole) used to measure them, and this is retained by using the term Avogadros number instead of amount of substance. As I have noted, it would be acceptable to me to retain the article with a redirect to Avogadro's number. --Blainster 20:08, 24 October 2005 (UTC)