Using everyday stoichiometry and the principles of balancing a chemical reaction, we can balance the equation for making a sandwich. For a classic peanut butter sandwich, the balanced representation is 2Bd + Pe → BdPeBd. The same process is applied to determine the required ingredients for multiple ham sandwiches (10 slices of ham, 5 slices of cheese, 5 slices of tomato, 25 pickles, 10 slices of bread) and Kim would need 20 pickles to make sandwiches with her 8 slices of ham.
To craft the perfect sandwich using symbols for ingredients, we can apply the principles of everyday stoichiometry, similarly to how chemists balance chemical equations. A classic sandwich might be represented with two slices of bread and a spread of peanut butter, so we could denote this as 2Bd + Pe → BdPeBd. Like balancing a chemical equation, each side needs the same number of each component to be balanced. In the case of creating multiple sandwiches, like the ham sandwich example, we multiply each ingredient by the number of sandwiches we want to make. So, for five ham sandwiches, we need 5 times the amount of each ingredient: 10 slices of ham (2H per sandwich), 5 slices of cheese (C), 5 slices of tomato (T), 25 pickles (5P), and 10 slices of bread (2B). Using our ham sandwich balanced equation 2H+C+T+5P+2B → H₂CTP₅B₂, we can determine the exact needed quantity for each ingredient.
If Kim has 8 slices of ham and wants to make as many sandwiches as possible, she can make 4 sandwiches since 2 slices of ham are required for one sandwich. Based on the ham sandwich stoichiometry, she would therefore need 4 times 5 pickles, which equals to 20 pickles in total.