Download Physical Science CP Seton Hall Preparatory School Mr. Greene Fall

Physical Science CP
Seton Hall Preparatory School
Mr. Greene
Fall Trimester Extra Credit 4
Option 1:
Answer each of the following making sure to show all work (1 point each);
a. A sample of hydrogen gas at 10.3 kPa and measuring 402 K has its pressure reduced by 10.22 kPa. What is the
resulting temperature in ° C?
b. From the question above, what state is the hydrogen in at this final temperature? Explain your reasoning
c. Recall that we defined relative humidity as the ratio of the actual amount of water vapor in the air at a certain
temperature to the total amount of water vapor that could be ‘held’ in the air at that temperature. We can express
relative humidity mathematically as;
RH = (actual vapor density / saturation vapor density) * 100%
Calculate relative humidity for the following;
1. For 20 °C; actual vapor density = 10 g/m3, saturation vapor density = 17.3 g/m3
2. For 5 °C; actual vapor density = 3 g/m3, saturation vapor density = 11.4 g/m3
3. For 33 °C; actual vapor density = 18.6 g/m3, saturation vapor density = 20.7 g/m3
d. One of the largest known stars is VY Canis Majoris – at 3,900 light years away, it has a mass seventeen times that of
our Sun (1.989*1030 kg). What is the mass of VY Canis Majoris in kg? How far away is this star in parsecs?
e. A sample of gas has an initial volume of 8.3 L at 11.8 atm and 294 K. The pressure of the sample is increased to
18,924 mm Hg and the volume is reduced to 5,911 cm3. What is the resulting temperature in °C?
Option 2 (5 points):
Recite, from memory, the following passage from Stephen Hawking’s best selling book A Brief History of Time;
“Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it. No matter how many times the
results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other
hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory. As philosopher of science
Karl Popper has emphasized, a good theory is characterized by the fact that it makes a number of predictions that could in principle be
disproved or falsified by observation. Each time new experiments are observed to agree with the predictions the theory survives, and our
confidence in it is increased; but if ever a new observation is found to disagree, we have to abandon or modify the theory.”