the number of line counts of the canonical New Testament and some of the Apocrypha. Definition A stoichiometric amount or stoichiometric ratio of a reagent is the optimum amount or ratio where, assuming that the reaction proceeds to completion: All of the reagent is consumed There is no deficiency of the reagent There is no excess of the reagent. Stoichiometry rests upon the very basic laws that help to understand it better, i.e., law of conservation of mass, the law of definite proportions (i.e., the law of constant composition), the law of multiple proportions and the law of reciprocal proportions. In general, chemical reactions combine in definite ratios of chemicals. Since chemical reactions can neither create nor destroy matter, nor transmute one element into another, the amount of each element must be the same throughout the overall reaction. For example, the number of atoms of a given element X on the reactant side must equal the number of atoms of that element on the product side, whether or not all of those atoms are actually involved in a reaction. Chemical reactions, as macroscopic unit operations, consist of simply a very large number of elementary reactions, where a single molecule reacts with another molecule. As the reacting molecules (or moieties) consist of a definite set of atoms in an integer ratio, the ratio between reactants in a complete reaction is also in integer ratio. A reaction may consume more than one molecule, and the stoichiometric number counts this number, defined as positive for products (added) and negative for reactants (removed). The unsigned coefficients are generally referred to as the stoichiometric coefficients. Each element has an atomic mass, and considering molecules as collections of atoms, compounds have a definite molar mass. By definition, the molar mass of carbon-12 is 12 g/mol. The number of molecules per mole in a substance is given by the Avogadro constant. Thus, to calculate the stoichiometry by mass, the number of molecules required for each reactant is expressed in moles and multiplied by the molar mass of each to give the mass of each reactant per mole of reaction. The mass ratios can be calculated by dividing each by the total in the whole reaction. Elements in their natural state are mixtures of isotopes of differing mass; thus, atomic masses and thus molar masses are not exactly integers. For instance, instead of an exact 14:3 proportion, 17.04