We discussed in class that James Prescott Joule tried but failed to measure the

Question

We discussed in class that James Prescott Joule tried but failed to measure the internal pressure of a gas. In Joule?s experiment, two spherical vessels were immersed in a bath of water separated by a stopcock. The first vessel (A) contained a gas under pressure and the second was empty. He tried to measure the change in temperature of the water when he opened the stopcock bath but saw no change. The ratio of the heat capacities of the gas and the water bath was 1/1000. He could measure the temperature of the water bath with a precision of +/- 0.006 K. a) What is the minimal change in temperature of the gas following the expansion for it to be detectable? b) Using the van der Waals expression for the internal pressure given in Problem 2D.2a for the case of the expansion of one mole of nitrogen with initial and final volumes as given in Problem 2D.2a, what would be the change in temperature of the bath and would he able to detect it? c) How would you redesign his experiment to get a positive outcome?

Explanation / Answer

a) The fact that temperure doesn

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