Lab: finding absolute zero.

Essay by eviiil October 2005

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Absolute Zero.

Aim:

i) To find the relationship between Temperature and Volume when heating a gas.

ii) To find the of absolute zero temperature, i.e. 0 Kelvin (-273.15°C).

Variables:

Dependant Variable: Volume

Independent Variable: Temperature

Hypothesis:

The volume of the water will increase as temperature increases, since the distance of the particles in the water between each other increases, making the water "expand", increasing the volume of the water.

Apparatus & Materials:

1000mL glass beaker, tap water, 0 to 110°C-glass tube thermometer, open ended glass capillary tube, ice cubes

Data Collection:

T V

14 19,5

25 20

30 20,2

35 20,4

40 20,6

45 20,7

50 20,8

55 20,9

60 21

65 21,1

70 21,2

75 21,3

80 21,5

85 21,8

90 22

600 ml of water

For open ended glass capillary tube:

1 unit = 1mm"

Conclusion and Evaluation:

The results support the hypothesis stated above, as the temperature of the water rises, the volume increases as well.

The volume does not increase proportionally with the temperature. The graph shows that the results I measured were not very accurate since the absolute zero I obtained after drawing the line of best fit is -435°C instead of the accepted value of -273.15°C, there is a gap of 162.15°C between those two values. The graph shows how inaccurate my readings were, the data points do not increase constantly, instead, the slope one would obtain, if one were to draw a line connecting those pints would approach 0, in other words, the line would become horizontal (similar to a cubic function).

There were many errors which manipulated this experiment. First one is as always human error, the use of analogue measuring devices meant that one had to read off the values with the human eye and since humans tend to round values...