I was having a discussion today with someone and we came across this dilemma. If you have two 55 gallon drums and fill them both with air at the same initial temperature, just for argument's sake, we'll say 80 degrees. You take one drum and cool it to 45 degress and heat the other to 130 degrees. Now, as we know, the density of air in the two drums will be different (I chose air so we could easily the ideal gas law P=rho*R*T). The question that we came across is will their masses be different? I said yes because the equation for mass is m=rho*volume, and since the volume is constant, mass is a function of rho. He seems to think they will be the same because of conservation of matter within a closed system. Who is right?
Came across an interesting physics/chemistry question?
- Thread starter bigK
- Start date