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  Session: Introductory Labs/Apparatus II
  Paper Type: Contributed
  Title: Disproving (and Re-proving) the Ideal Gas Law
  Meeting: 2018 Summer Meeting: Washington, DC
  Location: N/A
  Date:
  Time: 8:40AM
  Author: Dean A. Stocker,
University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College,
937-552-6217, dean.stocker@uc.edu
  Co-Author(s): Tonnetta C. Elliott,, Socheathta K. Phouny,
  Abstract: Our algebra-based general physics lab at UC Blue Ash uses a PASCO Heat Engine / Gas Law Apparatus to demonstrate that volume is proportional to temperature for an ideal gas when pressure and the number of molecules are both held constant. However, carefully collected data does not show a linear relationship between temperature and volume. An apparent contradiction of the ideal gas law! This provides an interesting challenge for the students, and it is a challenge whose solution cannot be easily found on the internet. A careful inspection of the equipment and proper application of the ideal gas law actually does predict a curve for this instrument when measuring volume as a function of temperature. The math required for determining the shape of the curve when the temperature is increasing is beyond the scope of algebra-based physics, but the curve when the temperature is decreasing has an algebraic solution.
  Footnotes: None
  Presentation: sm2018_AAPT Summer 2018 Ideal Gas Law Stocker.pdf

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