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Pretend that you live in the 19th century and don't know the value of Avogadro's number* (or of Boltzmann's constant or of the mass or size of any molecule). Show how you could make a rough estimate of Avogadro's number from a measurement of the thermal conductivity of gas, together with other measurements that are relatively easy.

Short Answer

Expert verified

Estimating the value of Avogadro's number ,

which is,

NA≈RTPCV2kt33MV32

Step by step solution

01

To Find ℓ.

The thermal conductivity and other macroscopic properties measured for an ideal gas can be used to generate a rough estimate of Avogadro's number. The formula for thermal conductivity is:

kt=CV2Vℓv¯ Let be equation (1)

Assume we've configured the system so that we have a volume box Vand cross-sectional area A. We know that the average speed v¯is approximately the RMS speed, which is:

v¯≈vrms=3kTm

multiply with NN, so:

Let the following be Equation (2)

localid="1650414641595" v¯=3NkTNm=3NkTM=3PVM

where  Mis the total mass of the gas. Substitute from (2) into (1), so:

localid="1650414665465" kt=CV2Vℓv¯=CV2Vℓ3PVM=CV2ℓ3PMV

â„“=2CVktMV3P

02

To find N

Schroeder's expression for â„“is based on the idea that the mean path length is equal to the length of a cylinder of radius equal to the diameter and volume of the molecule equal to the average volume per molecule VN, so that:

â„“=14Ï€r2NV

where rthe radius of the molecule, To get Nfrom this formula, we need to know r, but this is a microscopic quantity that we're assuming we don't know. I can't see any way of progressing from here unless we take a different value localid="1650296672007" â„“. Since we're after only a rough approximation of Avogadro's number, we can take â„“Instead of the average distance between collisions, it should be the average distance between molecules. That is to say:

Let be equation (4)

ℓ≈VN13

We can now combine equations (4) and (3), so:

VN13=2CVktMV3P

apply the power 3on both sides:

VN≈2CVkt3MV3P32

solve for N, so:

NV≈CV2kt33PMV32→N≈CV2kt33PMV32V

N≈CV2kt33PM321V let be equation (5)

03

To find the Avogadro's number

Assuming we know the gas constant R, The ideal gas law can be used to calculate the number of moles:

n=PVRT

And Avogadro number is given by:

NA=Nn=RTPVN

substitute from equation (5) so Avogadro's number is roughly:

NA≈RTPVCV2kt33PM321V

NA≈RTPCV2kt33MV32

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