Please help ; _; It's a Charles' Gas Law problem
Q: A sample of neon initially has a volume of 2.50 L at 15 C. What final temperature, in degrees Celsius, is needed to change the volume of the gas to 7.50 L?

So I changed 15 C to 288 K, plugged everything in and I ended up with an answer of 864 C.
But, in the back of the book, it says the answer is 591 C.
What am I doing wrong? I thought I followed all of the rules correctly..

Question

Please help ; _; It's a Charles' Gas Law problem
Q: A sample of neon initially has a volume of 2.50 L at 15 C. What final temperature, in degrees Celsius, is needed to change the volume of the gas to 7.50 L? 

So I changed 15 C to 288 K, plugged everything in and I ended up with an answer of 864 C.
But, in the back of the book, it says the answer is 591 C.
What am I doing wrong? I thought I followed all of the rules correctly..

joannablackwelder · Answer

864 is the answer in Kelvin.

joannablackwelder · Answer

Subtract 273 and you get 591.

anonymous · Answer

Ah, okay. But just to clarify.. When I'm trying to solve for temperature in gas law problems, do I always have to subtract 273 from the answer?

I ask this because my professor told us to first start out by converting the temperature to K, so I wanted to know if I should remember to always subtract 273 at the end as well.

joannablackwelder · Answer

If you want your final answer in Celsius, yes.

anonymous · Answer

Thank you for clearing that up ^ ^ I really appreciate it!

joannablackwelder · Answer

No problem. :)