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Topic: Problem with Atkins' Physical Chemistry 8th edition question  (Read 6268 times)

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Offline Schrödinger

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Hey guys,

I was going through the exercises in Atkins' Physical Chemistry - 8th edition, and I think I found some answers erratic.

For those who have the book, please refer page 25 (Chapter 1 : Gaseous state) questions 1.19a, 1.19b, 1.20a and 1.20b. If you have tried to solve the question, then please refer to the answers as well. The radius of the molecules/atoms is what I don't think are correct.

Can someone who has the book solve for the radii and tell me if the answers agree with yours?

For those who don't have the book, the concept is the usage of Van der Waals co-efficient 'b' to determine the radius of the gaseous atom/molecule.

The book clearly states in a previous page that .
Vmolecule is Volume of the molecule
Na is Avogadro's number

The solutions manual as well as wikipedia ignore the factor 4 as an approximation, but the answers don't seem to agree with that either. Could someone please help me out?
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Offline Schrödinger

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Re: Problem with Atkins' Physical Chemistry 8th edition question
« Reply #1 on: June 06, 2010, 02:25:01 AM »
Anybody?
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Offline jj74

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Re: Problem with Atkins' Physical Chemistry 8th edition question
« Reply #2 on: July 06, 2010, 09:56:15 AM »
for 1.19a I found 1.48*10EXP(-8) cm,  I don’t have the solution manual
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Offline Schrödinger

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Re: Problem with Atkins' Physical Chemistry 8th edition question
« Reply #3 on: July 06, 2010, 12:21:18 PM »
First of all, thanks for the reply.

That's the answer I got too. So, I guess the solution manual and the answer at the back of the text are the wrong.

Thanks a lot again
"Destiny is not a matter of chance; but a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved."
- William Jennings Bryan

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