The Answer Is Not 0

Consider air at sea level on the surface of the earth at 2 0 o C 20^o~C , pressure p 0 p_0 (in Pascals) and a mass density ρ 0 \rho_0 . Let the pressure 10 m above sea level be p 10 p_{10} . Let the pressure 20 m above sea level be p 20 p_{20} . What is

p 0 p 20 p 0 p 10 2 \frac{p_0-p_{20}}{p_0-p_{10}}-2 ?

You may consider air to be entirely nitrogen for the purposes of this problem.
The acceleration of gravity is 9.8 m / s 2 -9.8~m/s^2 .


The answer is -0.00113.

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1 solution

Pranav Arora
May 2, 2014

The question is basically based on the Barometric pressure formula .

It states that

p = p 0 exp ( M g h R T ) \displaystyle p=p_0\exp\left(-\frac{Mgh}{RT}\right)

where

p p is the pressure at height h h from sea level.

p 0 p_0 is the pressure at sea level.

M M is the molar mass of air (I used 29 g / m o l 29\,g/mol )

R R is the universal gas constant.

T T is the temperature.


Let h = 10 m h=10\,m , then we can write,

p 10 = p 0 exp ( M g h R T ) \displaystyle p_{10}=p_{0}\exp\left(-\frac{Mgh}{RT}\right)

p 20 = p 0 exp ( M g ( 2 h ) R T ) \displaystyle p_{20}=p_0\exp\left(-\frac{Mg(2h)}{RT}\right)

To make things easier, substitute exp ( M g h R T ) = x \exp\left(-\dfrac{Mgh}{RT}\right)=x , i.e p 10 = p 0 x p_{10}=p_0 x and p 20 = p 0 x 2 p_{20}=p_0x^2 . Plugging in the expression we have to evaluate,

p 0 p 0 x 2 p 0 p 0 x 2 = ( 1 x ) ( 1 + x ) ( 1 x ) 2 = x 1 \displaystyle \frac{p_0-p_0x^2}{p_0-p_0x}-2=\frac{(1-x)(1+x)}{(1-x)}-2=x-1

x 1 = exp ( M g h R T ) 1 1.11659 × 1 0 3 \Rightarrow x-1=\exp\left(-\frac{Mgh}{RT}\right)-1\approx \boxed{-1.11659 \times 10^{-3}}

I used the following values:

M = 29 × 1 0 3 k g / m o l M=29\times 10^{-3} \,kg/mol , g = 9.8 m / s 2 g=9.8\,m/s^2 , h = 10 m h=10\,m , R = 8.314 J / ( m o l K ) R=8.314\,\,J/(mol-K) and T = 293 K T=293\,K .

Can you show the calculations, to demonstrate why it's not 0?

Calvin Lin Staff - 7 years, 1 month ago

Did you take out the average of the molar mass of oxygen and nitrogen? What was the value of R and g that you used? I used this method before and am still getting the answer as -0.001157.

Led Tasso - 7 years, 1 month ago

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I honestly don't remember which value for molar mass I used while I did the calculation. In the solution above, I have used 29 g / m o l 29\,g/mol which is usually a good approximation. If you assume that the air is completely made up of nitrogen, you get a answer very close to the given answer. This is a past Brilliant problem and I remember that it was stated to assume molar mass of the air equal to 28 g/mol.

Pranav Arora - 7 years, 1 month ago

Sorry, I've just added in the assumptions I used in the question. It would be hard to get the exact answer otherwise.

Roger Kepstein Staff - 7 years, 1 month ago

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Ah, thanks Roger Kepstein!

Pranav Arora - 7 years, 1 month ago

I used it to be a mix of 80 % Nitrogen and 20% oxygen to get -0.00119. This was surely not a well phrased problem.

jatin yadav - 7 years, 1 month ago

I wrote the correct answer 2 times and they told it wrong!!

Parth Lohomi - 6 years, 11 months ago

The equation above is for an isothermic transformation only, isn’t?

Alex Barros - 3 years, 6 months ago

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