First Law and Kinetic Theory

The day began by an experiment called the heated syringe. It allowed us to see the relationship between pressure and volume.

The picture above shows the set up of the Heated Syringe. 

Before the experiment began, we were supposed to predict what was going to happen to the syringe and how this whole process was going to work. The idea was that the temperature increase will cause the pressure to increase as well which in turn will make the syringe compress which results in a decrease in volume.

We then were introduced to the first law of thermodynamics which was change in E = Heat - Work. Then, Professor Mason asked us to predict circumstances under which there was no heat but only work present and only heat present and no temperature. The results of what we got are shown above.

We then used the first law of thermodynamics along with the conservation of energy principle in order to find the work done on a copper bar along with what the volume was. The results are shown above.

After that we moved on to a different topic involving Kinetic Theory involving the Kinetic Energy in relation to pressure and volume. This deals with the movement of atoms and their relationship with both the change in pressure and volume.

Then we moved on to the Kinetic Theory involving gases which gave us the equation of Energy = 3/2 NkbT. Using that equation we then found the relationship between temperature and volume. 

To end the class we were briefly introduced to an experiment called the Fire Syringe involving an adiabatic process. The result is shown in the video above.

Using the length and using the initial temperature we were able to calculate the final temperature.