First, what is the Ideal Gas Law? PV = nRT
Pressure*Volume = number of moles*universal constant*temperature
in the case of diving in the HBOT, V, n and R are constant, then the variables are P and T
Pressure varies directly with temperature, so as pressure increases we would expect temperature to increase. Conversely, as pressure decreases, we would expect temperature to similarly decrease.
As it turns out, we three can all testify to the temperature of the chamber increasing (whew!) as pressure increases during the dive (to about 20 feet) and decreasing (brrrr!) again while we are going up. It's so cool to see the Ideal Gas Law work in reality!!!!
2 comments:
Hmmmm.... I'll take your word for it on the ideal gas law. I haven't done much advanced science in 25 years! I outsource it once the kids start getting to advanced for me. I can do biology, but chemistry and physics kind of leave me in the dust these days.
When I excitedly went on about how HBOT shows the Ideal Gas Law, you could see people's eyes glaze over and roll to the back of their heads. However, I think its pretty darn cool to have an example of a real-life equation working and that you can FEEL the actual results. Especially, since direct and inverse variation came up several times this year in Algebra II and math tutoring.
Post a Comment