Question

The combustion of magnesium creates so much energy so quickly that it is hard to measure its enthalpy directly using a simple calorimeter. However, you will break this reaction down into other intermediate reactions whose enthalpies you can – and will – measure. What broad question are you answering by doing this experiment?

Answer 1

I believe your answer is: What is the enthalpy of formation of magnesium oxide?
Hope this helps! :)

Answer 2

Answer:  Enthalpy of the reaction of combustion of magnesium

Explanation: The enthalpy of reaction of combustion of methane is usually determined by the usage of the Hess law .

Hess Law states that regardless of the multiple steps of the reaction, the total enthalpy change is equal to the sum of the enthalpies of all the steps involved.

Thus in order to find out the total change in enthalpy of magnesium oxide , we can break the reaction into several intermediate reactions whose entalpies can be easily determined.