Having a degree in chemistry, I feel strongly obliged to protest against the reality value of this problem.
When solving problems on this site, one slowly gets used to necklaces with thousands of beads, cities with millions of bus lines and paper that can be folded hundreds of times. Not to speak of mushroom fields the size of the universe. But this realy goes too far.
Apart from being thermodynamicaly insane, this problem let's us believe that the mixing order (?!?) of two chemicals can lead to different products: mixing A with B can give a different product than mixing B with A. In my opinion the problemsetter should have warned us for this counterintuitive anomality. Would have saved me some hours in frustration...
Please, dear problemsetters, I know it's appealing to translate an abstract concept into a real life example. But try to stay a little closer to reality, and please warn us when the deviations take on these magnitudes.



