Recent content by Jo MacDonald

One last clarification. Since liquids and solids don't change as much as gases, would it be safe to assume that their expansion coefficients change less with changing temperatures? That is, it is safe to use the published one at 20 C for most all temperatures (within reason)?

So the coefficient should increase for lower temps, that makes sense to get you back to the warm Charles' Law volume.

OK, I just noticed in my textbook that the coefficients are given at 20 C. Since I've never seen any other numbers, I just assumed that they were constants. I had never heard that they were temperature dependent. When haruspex said that the coefficient depended on the initial temperature, I...

The temperature change was about 30 degrees Celsius. We use the expansion equation over much larger temperature ranges.

We found the volumes both directly and with Charles law. We came up with similar initial (freezer) volumes both ways, so the difference is using the cold volume for your Vo out the warm volume. It should contract and expand equally due to Charles law, but you get different coefficients...

Hi all. I teach physics at an all girls Catholic high school. Trying to keep it doable and interesting.

We did an activity today in class where we placed an empty 2L bottle in the Freezer, let it contract, then calculated the coeffcient of volumetric expansion using ΔV = VoβΔT. We got pretty close to the accepted value. The question is... Does the coefficient of thermal expansion only work for...