Avogadro constant Avogadro constant In chemistry and physics, the Avogadro constant, named after scientist Amedeo Avogadro, is the number of constituent particles, usually atoms or molecules, that are contained in the amount of substance given by one mole. Thus, it is the proportionality factor that relates the molar mass of a substance to the mass of a sample. The Avogadro constant, often designated with the symbol "N" or "L", has the value in the International System of Units (SI). (The parentheses there represent the degree of uncertainty.) Previous definitions of chemical quantity involved the Avogadro number, a historical term closely related to
Barn (unit) of a nucleus with an electric field gradient. While the barn is not an SI unit, the SI standards body acknowledges its existence due to its continued use in particle physics. The etymology of the unit barn is whimsical: during Manhattan Project research on the atomic bomb during World War II, American physicists at Purdue University needed a secretive unit to describe the approximate cross sectional area presented by the typical nucleus (10 m) and decided on "barn". This was particularly applicable because they considered this a large target for particle accelerators that needed to have direct strikes on nuclei