BEFORE i FORGET » AVOGADRO’S LITTLE NUMBER written by Simon Jones

It was my friend Anne’s Birthday yesterday (Happy Birthday Anne) so, as one does, I decided to call her up and wish her a happy birthday. I actually sang “Happy Birthday” to her which is never really a good thing, but it’s the only time I feel I can get away with singing to another person without the risk of them asking me to please stop.

Anyway, while on the phone with her, and for no real reason at all, I decided to Google her name, Anne Metz. She did the same in one of those ‘this conversation is being only kept alive by machines’ kinda ways, and pretty soon we were both looking at the same page. A blog by another Anne Metz.

Now ordinarily I wouldn’t write about such a thing, but while I had Anne on the phone we both explored the other Anne’s website out of nothing more than namesake curiosity.

Then we found her video post about Avogadro’s number. Now I’ll admit that I have never heard of Avogadro’s number but thanks to (the other) Anne I can now talk about Avogadro’s number and make like I’m one of those clever people who would know about such a thing.

As I watched the post (the other) Anne then said she was about to sing a little number about the big number to which I said out loud with a smile on my face “Oh no!” Other uninhibited public displays have in the past ended in seemingly never ending embarrassment and, one would assume, lives of seclusion for those involved (lest we forget the Aicha song). So I grimaced as (the other Anne) began her little number, fearing that things were about to become ugly.

Fortunately for her she managed to pull it off. Her little performance actually endeared me to her and her cleverly large numberness. I’ve had to watch the video a few times so that I can now sound as clever as her when I tell people that Avogadro’s number is the something scientist use to figure out the atomic atoms that are in the avocados element… no wait, that’s not it… it’s a scientist who used avocados to invent the atomic… no no, that’s not it either. It’s the number of avocados that any number of atoms can weigh, yep, I’m pretty sure that it.

In any case, I decided to share the video with you all and use this as an opportunity to wish my friend Anne, who isn’t the Anne Metz in this video but who is every bit as clever as any avocado and more, a very happy birthday.