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Scales in a gas

Page history last edited by Joe Redish 5 years, 2 months ago

7.1.P2

 

The actual diameter of an atom is about a tenth of a nanometer (10-10 m). In order to develop some intuition for the molecular scale of a gas, assume that you are considering a liter of air (mostly N2 and O2) at room temperature and a pressure of one atmosphere -- 105 Pa.

 

  1. Calculate the number of molecules in the sample of gas.
  2. Estimate the average spacing between the molecules.
  3. Estimate the average speed of a molecule using the relation between the KE of a molecule and the temperature.
  4. Suppose that the gas were rescaled upwards so that each atom was the size of a tennis ball. What would be the average spacing between molecules?

 

Joe Redish 12/1/11 

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