Question

Explain which gas law applies to the following scenarios, and then in your own words explain WHY we are seeing these phenomena

You accidentally helium birthday balloons in your car overnight, and the balloons shrivel up.

You are from St. Louis Missouri, and you are used to following the cake recipe found on the box you get from the grocery store. For Thanksgiving Break you decide to travel to Denver, CO to visit a friend and make a cake for the big meal. However, when you finished making the recipe, your cake has weirdly large air pockets.

Answer 1

Ans. 1. Charles’ Law: Volume (V) of a gas in a closed vessel is directly proportional to absolute temperature (T).

Leaving helium balloons outside in car overnight reduces in volume due to lowering of temperature during night.

Ans. 2. Air bubbles ion the cake may appear while mixing the bather and/or addition of baking soda or other leavening agents. While at room temperature, the air bubbles may clearly not be visible. When baked at high temperature, the volume of minute air bubbles expand following Charles’ law. Thus, the cake has clearly visible larger air bubbles trapped in the cake that were not visible in the batter.