Question

We only considered the Ideal Gas Law when coming to our conclusions. What are some other factors that could affect air pressure in the footballs? How could those factors affect your analysis of the data?

Answer 1

There are two factors that affect conditions of real gases as opposed to ideal gases. These are:

a) the size of molecules compared to the volume of container. The size of molecules is not considered in the case of ideal gases.

b) the attractive forces as a result of reduction in distance between the molecules.

These give rise to Van der Waals equation (P+ an^2)(V - nb) = nRT

a is the constant for attraction and b is for volume.

As attraction increases, pressure increases. As volume of the gas molecules increases, the effective volume decreases, which increases the pressure.