If number of moles and volume is constant, by how much would the pressure change? 3 times the original, 1/6 of the original, etc.? Justify your answer. Use the Kinetic Molecular Theory as part of your justification.

Question

matt101 · Answer

I think you're missing the first part of the question

anonymous · Answer

I'm not

welshfella · Answer

there must be a change in temperature for the pressure to change

jfraser · Answer

you are missing some information

anonymous · Answer

That's really what the question was.

anonymous · Answer

My chemistry teacher said he did that on purprose

matt101 · Answer

There must be more to it. Maybe you did a different question before this one that your teacher is referring to?

We can't possibly know how pressure changes without knowing what ELSE is being changed and by how much. It says moles and volume are constant, but it doesn't say anything about temperature. If we knew how temperature changed, we'd be able to figure out how pressure changed using PV=nRT.

For now, there's no way to give a hard number about how pressure changes. The only thing I can think of for your specific question is a general statement: pressure will change by the same factor that temperature changes. So for instance, if temperature is tripled, pressure will triple too (by PV=nRT, you need to triple both sides of the equation to keep it equal). Similarly, if temperature is halved, pressure will also be halved.