Final answer:
The mole is an amount unit that measures the number of atoms or molecules in a bulk sample of matter. It is similar to familiar units like pair, dozen, and gross. Avogadro's number is the fundamental constant associated with the mole.
Step-by-step explanation:
The mole is an amount unit similar to familiar units like pair, dozen, gross, etc. It provides a specific measure of the number of atoms or molecules in a bulk sample of matter. One Latin connotation for the word "mole" is "large mass" or "bulk," which is consistent with its use as the name for this unit. The mole provides a link between an easily measured macroscopic property, bulk mass, and an extremely important fundamental property, number of atoms, molecules, and so forth. A mole of substance is that amount in which there are 6.02214076 x 10²³ discrete entities (atoms or molecules). This large number is a fundamental constant known as Avogadro's number (NA) or the Avogadro constant in honor of Italian scientist Amedeo Avogadro. This constant is properly reported with an explicit unit of "per mole," a conveniently rounded version being 6.022 x 10²³/mol.