Labs and Laws By Bill

The first lab Im gonna talk about is where we put a marshmallow into a syringe. I then compressed and pulled out the plunger with the marshmallow in the syringe. By compressing the syringe the molecules of the marshmallow had a smaller area to move around in which caused the decrease in volume. When the pressure was released the marshmallow returned to its original size. When I pulled out on the syringe plunger the opposite happened, the marshmallow grew in volume filling up more of the syringe. Then when the plunger was released the marshmallow returned to its original size. This lab relates to Boyles Law, which states that when the temperature stays constant the pressure and volume are inversely related to one another. This means when pressure is increased volume decreases and when pressure is decreased the volume increases. This relates due to the fact that when pressure was put on the marshmallow, the marshmallow decreased in volume. When the pressure decreased the marshmallow increased in volume. With more or less pressure being exerted determines how much force is put on the marshmallow.

The second lab Im gonna talk about is where I put water into a pop can and placed the can onto a hot plate. When the water inside the can began to steam I quickly flipped the can upside down into cold water. Immediately the can caved in on itself. This lab relates to Gay-Lusaac's law, which states that if there is constant volume then the temperature and pressure are directly related. This means that as the temperature increases the pressure increases and when the temperature decreases the presure decreases. In the lab, the water in the can was the increase in temperature creating greater pressure. When the can was flipped into the ice water the temperature decreased and so did the pressure causing the can to crumple on itself. The change in pressure was the ingredient that caused the can to react the way it did.

The final lab that I will talk about deals with adding heat to a balloon to make the balloon rise and then takeing away the heat to let it fall. I took a mostly deflated balloon and used a hair dryer to act as the heat for this experiment. By adding the heat the balloon rose to the ceiling once i took the heat out of the equation the balloon began to descend towards the floor. This lab relates to Charle's Law which states that with a constant pressure the temperature and volume relate directly. As the temperature increases so does the volume and as the temperature decreases so does the volume. As the heat was applied the molecules inside the balloon gained more energy filling the space allowing the balloon to gain altitude. However, when the heat was not applied the molecules slowed down causing the balloon to deflate again and descend back to the floor.