Recently at school, while studying equilibrium we learned that in problems where the initial concentrations of reactants and the equilibrium constant are given, there is a special formula to determine wether the change in reactants can be ignored where C is the concentration of the reactant with the smallest concentration and K is the equilibrium constant: L=C/K. We learned that if L is bigger than 500, we can consider the change in the reactants negligible. However this is where my problem lies: i do not see why the C is included, doesn't the size of K by itself tell us wether a little or a lot of reactants is transformed? Not to mention, some cases turn out flat out wrong. For example: A+B=(reversible) 2C.
Initial concentrations: A=10^-20M B=10^-20M. C=0 M
K=10^-8
By the equation we learned, L=10^-12 and thus the variation in the reactants should not be neglected. However, after doing the math, x~10^-24 which is 4 orders of magnitude below the beginning concentration of the reactants and completely negligible, is something wrong with my logic? Or did i discover a flaw in my textbook :)
Thanks