The energy exchanges between molecules

Abstract

The marked disagreement between the specific heats at high temperatures of the diatomic gases as found by sound velocity measurements, and those calculated from theoretical considerations, has for long been a source of perplexity to statistical mechanists; a perplexity all the greater in view of the simple nature of the theoretical calculations which appeared to form as direct a test of Boltzmann's hypothesis and the theory of band spectra as was possible to large scale measurements. One way out of the difficulty is to attribute the differences to the experimental difficulties inherent in the sound velocity method of measurement at high temperatures(1), but it cannot be denied that there is a certain measure of agreement between the separate velocity determinations. It consequently becomes necessary to examine the theory.