Deriving Absolute Zero: Pressure and Temperature

Today we did a simple activity where we measured the pressure of a gas in a sealed steel sphere (try saying that three times fast!) at three different temperatures.

We graphed our data points and then extrapolated a best-fit line to estimate the x-intercept. We discussed that this was the point of ABSOLUTE ZERO, -273 degrees Celsius, the point of zero kinetic energy!

We were amazed that gas particles behave in a way that generates a directly proportional relationship between pressure and temperature, and that we could estimate this point from three simple data points.

Great job, chemists!