Science Saturday: Avogadro Bracelet

I'm back from my trip and feeling refreshed! Before work picks up again, I'm taking the time to get some crafting done. Here's one bracelet I finished:

Avogadro's Number in light blue.

 I also got a new camera while I was on vacation. I don't know if you can tell from that end, but it's now much, much easier to take pictures. The photography still isn't my favorite part (if it were, I'd be a photographer) but after playing around with the new camera, it's safe to say that I'm not going to dread taking photos anymore!

 The toggle is secure, but easy to put on one-handed. It seems like people never think about "ease of use" when designing bracelets!

This was almost another pi bracelet, but I decided that I have plenty of pi jewelry in my stash for now. Aside from experiments with double helices reminiscent of DNA, I've been neglecting the sciences recently. So, I decided to change things up and go with some chemistry: Avogadro's number, to be precise. 

In case you forgot: Avogadro's number is a physical constant; the number of constituent particles (atoms or molecules), that are contained in a mole of a substance. Since it is a physical constant, its value varies a bit; rather, there comes a point where it is difficult to calculate. The official CODATA value is 6.022140857 x 10^23. This bracelet uses a truncated version (6.0221419) though I can't seem to find my source for that. Anyway!

The smaller beads are faceted little 4 mm blue lace agate, while the larger nuggets are blue chalcedony.

Working with physical constants (which is what Avogadro's Number is) (my fingers keep wanting to type Avogadrio and I don't know why!) can be tricky, since the digits are limited. Physical constants aren't like mathematical irrationals and they don't conveniently go on and on forever, so I can't really just pick and choose where I stop. Sometimes I need to play a lot with bead size and patterns to get an acceptable length, and this time was no exception. You're looking at the third pattern I worked with, but it comes together nicely at a total length of 21 cm, or just around 8 inches—a little longer than standard bracelet length, but not awkwardly big. It's a great gift option for someone who's usually sized out of bracelets, or to wear as a stackable.



For sale as of now; to be coming to my currently-empty Etsy store by the end of the month!