Charles Law Lab
Purpose: To investigate Charles Law
Materials: two large beakers, hot plate, ice, "pulled" and cut beral pipette, tongs,
thermometer
Procedure:
1. Fill the entire beral pipette with water and count the number of drops (this will be
your V1) the pipette contains while heating a beaker 3/4 full of water on a hot plate.
2. Taking care not to let the hot water go above 80 degrees (the pipette plastic will warp
otherwise - you may want to remove the beaker from the hot plate before you do step
three) hold the pipette gently but firmly by the pulled stem with your tongs. Take care
that the open tip is pointing down when you submerge the pipette completely in the
hot water. Bubbles will begin to come out of opening - when the bubbles stop or
slow considerably proceed to the next step. (Make sure you record the temperature of
the hot water - this will be your T1 - don’t forget to add 273.15 K!)
3. Very quickly transfer the pipette from the hot water to the cold water - making
absolutely certain that the open tip of the pipette goes in the cold water first (NOT the
bulb). Keep submerged for about 30 seconds. The cold water temperature will be
your T2 (plus the 273.15 of course). Water will be pulled into the pipette - to get V2
you will subtract the number of drops pulled into the pipette from V1.
Data:
Number of drops in entire pipette: _____________
Number of drops sucked in
: _____________
Temperature of hot water
: _____________
Temperature of cold water
: _____________
Calculations:
See procedure for what numbers to plug into Charles Law and calculate to see if the two
sides of the equation are equal to each other.
Make sure you explain possible sources of error.
Explain how the results in this lab verify Charles Law.