Suppose you had a \(50: 50\) homogeneous mixture of oxygen gas in helium gas. Which would you call the solvent and which would you call the solute?

In a gaseous mixture, it is generally assumed that the more abundant component is the solvent, while the less abundant component is the solute. However, in this case, both gases are present in equal proportions (50:50). Therefore, it would be arbitrary to consider one of them the solvent and the other the solute since there is no clear basis for the distinction. To summarize, in the given mixture of oxygen gas and helium gas in equal proportions, it is not appropriate to identify one of the gases as the solvent and the other as the solute, as both gases are present in equal amounts, and the distinction between solvent and solute does not have the same meaning in a gaseous mixture as it does in a liquid solution.