Community College of Philadelphia

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Experiment Number: 11-2B

Title: Boyle’s Law

Performed by: Zinoubia Hasasna

Physics course: Physics 140

Lab day: 4/2/2018

Lab Instructor: Wojciech Gontar

Date due: 4/9/2018

Purpose:

The purpose of this experiment is to investigate Boyle’s law to observe how the volume of a gas
varies with it pressure when the temperature is held constant. Also, it is desired to familiarize the
us with some equipment and software that permit recording, graphing, and analysis of physical
data with a computer.

Procedure:

l. We Read and record the initial room temperature. Then we read and record the volumes of air
in the syringe with the plunger in six differ positions. I push the syringe's plunger to the desired
volume and my partner typed in the volume of air in milliliters on the computer keyboard. My
partner reading the scale on the syringe keep his line sight perpendicular to his scale, in order
minimize parallax errors. When the plunger in the syringe is pushed inward, work is done the
entrapped air causing its temperature to rise. We make sure to wait at least 10 seconds to verify
that the pressure reading is stable.

2. We make sure that the plunger in the syringe is at the 20 mL mark. Then we click on the
button mark "start" and press the backspace key and change the first volume from 20 mL 21mL.
then we clicked on Keep button. This records data point #1

3. We press "Enter" on the keyboard to advance to the next reading in the "syringe volume"
column. Then we slowly push on the plunger the syringe until it reaches the 18 mL mark. Then
we hold it steady in that on position until the pressure reading shown in window stops dropping.
Then we Pressed the backspace key until all the numbers in this box disappear. Then we type
19.0 on the computer keyboard and click the "Keep" button. This records data point #2

4. we take four additional readings for four intermediate positions of the plunger. We take these
readings at 2 mL intervals, so our last reading is at the 10 mL mark.

5. we click on the red square button to stop the program then we read and record the final room
temperature. Then we print the graphs and the data to include in your lab report. we Calculate the
rms (root-mean-square) deviation and the % rms deviation of the PV products, using equations
(3), (4), and (5)
Calculations:

1. P1 × V 1=53.7 ×21=1127.7 kPa . mL

2. P2 × V 2=59.1× 19=1122.9 kPa . mL

3. P3 × V 3=66.4 × 17=1128.8 kPa .mL

4. P4 ×V 4=76.7 ×15=1150.5 kPa . mL

5. P5 × V 5=88.9 ×13=1155.7 kPa . mL

6. P6 × V 6=104.5 ×11=1149.5 kPa . mL

+( PV )3+¿(PV ) (PV ) +(PV ) 1127.7 +1122.9+1128.8 +1150.5+1155.7 +1149.5

av=( PV )1 +( PV )2 4 5 6
=
6 6
(PV )¿
= 1139.2 kPa.mL

(PV )
(PV )
(PV )
(PV )
(PV )
(PV )
2
2 2 (¿¿ 6− ( PV )av ) = 12.988 kPa.mL
(¿ ¿ 4− ( PV )av ) +(¿ ¿ 5− ( PV )av ) +
6
2
(¿ ¿ 3−( PV ) av ) + ¿
2
(¿ ¿ 2− ( PV )av ) +¿
2
(¿ ¿ 1− ( PV )av ) +¿
¿
¿
σ =√ ¿

σ 12.988
% rms dev = = = 1.14%
( PV )av 1139.2

Questions

1. error will be introduced as gasses expand with temperature and any variation in temperature will lead
to change in volume.
2. Real gases behave like perfect gases at high temperatures and low pressures. hence boyle’s
law applies.

3. plastic tubing length = (8+5) cm = 13cm

Diameter = 1/8 inch = 2.54/8 cm = 0.3175 cm

radius=0.15875

so, volume = pi*r2*h= 3.14*0.158752*13=1.0292 cm3 = 1mL

Discussion :

The goal of this lab was to verify Boyle's law, which states that the pressure and volume of a gas
are inversely related. We assumed that room temperature would remain constant for the duration
of the experiment. The results of this lab were consistent with Boyle's law. As predicted, the
graph was inverse. The main source of error in this lab was inaccuracy in reading the syringe.
This is random error; sometimes we were a little high and sometimes a little low, as seen in our
graph. There are also slight inaccuracies in the Data Logger, which rounds numbers to two
decimal places. Another error was Human error. Holding the syringe in exactly the same place
during data collection. To correct for misreading of the syringe, we could do more trials or use a
more finely divided syringe. Our experiment verified Boyle's law - pressure and volume vary
inversely. One way to improve the lab would be to perform more trials to improve our accuracy
and help get rid of some of our random error.