What is an empirical formula

Ican determine the molar mass of an element by looking on the under the atomic mass for the element. for example the molar mass of phosphorus is 30.974 grams/mole. avogadro’s number tells me the amount of representative particles in 1 mole of any substance. this means 12.011 gram sample of carbon and a 32.0 gram sample of sulfur have the same number of atoms.

Consider the reaction of a(g) + b(g) + c(g) => d(g) for which the following data were obtained: experiment initial [a], mol/l initial [b], mol/l initial [c], mol/l initial rate, mol/l. s 1 0.0500 0.0500 0.0100 6.25 x 10^-3 2 0.100 0.0500 0.0100 2.50 x 10^-2 3 0.100 0.100 0.0100 1.00 x 10^-1 4 0.0500 0.0500 0.0200 6.25 x 10^-3 what is the rate law for the reaction?

How might this scientific phenomena be explained? a paper clip floats on water.