Re: speed of sound experiment

[John Gastineau <gastineau@mindspring.com>]

mea culpa--I did mean to type slower. It was late last night. My numbers
were these: 342 m/s air, 315 m/s CO2. The accepted values for the speeds,
according to the 1937 Handbook of Chemistry and Physics that I use, are
these, at 20C: air, 344 m/s; CO2, 258 m/s. 

At 10:55 PM 9/14/97 -0700, Leigh wrote:
> > One of you (thanks, Kyle) suggested trying the experiment with another
> > gas. Well, homebrewer that I am, I went down to the kitchen and took the
> > CO2 cylinder, and "poured" CO2 into a vertical tube with the bottom
> > sealed. I got a 10% change in speed, and I estimate the measurement
> > uncertainty to be only a few percent. Now, the speed of sound in CO2 is
> > actually about 30 or 40% faster than in air, but I'm sure I didn't have
> > the tube full of just CO2. All I did was pour.
>
> The speed of sound in CO2 is less than the speed of sound in air at the
> same temperature. 

 __________________________________

John E. Gastineau      gastineau@mindspring.com               KC8IEW
900 B Ridgeway Ave.    http://gastineau.home.mindspring.com        
Morgantown WV 26505    (304) 296-1966