Physical Chemistry 351
Dice Lab:
Congratulations, you get to roll pairs of dice four or five hundred
times.
Break up into groups of three or four. Your group will need one set
of regular dice and one set of loaded dice. The loaded dice have
rounded corners and are black, whereas the fair dice are white and
have square corners.
Before you start rolling, determine the possible macrostates for a
pair of dice, where we will define the average number of spots
rolling “up” as the macroscopic variable. For example, rolling a
“2” and a “3” gives an average of 2.5.
Next, determine the microstates that will give rise to each
macrostate, if: 1) the dice are distinguishable, and 2) if they are
not. Now roll the pair of fair dice at least 100 times, recording the
microstate resulting from each roll. Then, roll the loaded dice at
least 300 times, recording the microstate resulting from each roll.
Record your data in a compact form (think of a 6x6 matrix) for
both the fair and loaded dice.
Finally, roll your loaded dice into a flask filled with water. Do this
a sufficient number of times to determine if the water changes the
“loaded” configuration results.
Hang on to your data. You will need it for the lab write up.