Question

Jorge inflates a beach ball to a volume of 4L in his air-conditioned house where the temperature is 18℃. That afternoon he takes the beach ball to the beach with some friends. The temperature at the beach is 32℃, and the air pressure at the beach is the same as it was at Jorge's house. What will happen to Jorge's beach ball when he is at the beach? Choose the claim that best answers the question: * 1 point The beach ball will get smaller at the beach because the molecules are moving slower. The beach ball will stay the same size at the beach because the pressure is constant. The beach ball will get larger at the beach because the molecules are moving faster. The beach ball will get larger at the beach because the pressure will cause it to expand. The beach ball will get smaller at the beach because the molecules will collide less often.

Answer 1

Answer:

The beach ball will get larger at the beach because the molecules are moving faster.

Explanation:

We can answer this problem by using Charle's Law, which states that:

"For a constant mass of an ideal gas kept at constant pressure, the volume of the gas is directly proportional to its temperature"

Mathematically:

$V\propto T$

where

V is the volume of the gas

T is the absolute temperature of the gas

Here, we are analyzing the air inside the ball (the gas). We are also told that when the ball is brought to the beach, the pressure does not change: therefore, we can apply Charle's Law.

We are told that when the ball is brought to the beach, the temperature increases from 18℃ to 32℃: therefore, since the volume of the air (and the ball) is proportional to the temperature, this means that the volume of the ball will increase as well.

The reason for this is that the ball is not thermally isolated, so the molecules of the air inside the ball reach soon the same temperature of the surroundings, and so they will move faster (higher temperature means higher average kinetic energy of the molecules, so the molecules move faster, and therefore the ball will expand).

So the correct option is

The beach ball will get larger at the beach because the molecules are moving faster.