Affiliation:
1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo , Waterloo, Canada N2L 3G1
Abstract
Providing students of introductory thermal physics with a plot of the heat capacities of many low density gases as a function of temperature allows them to look for systematic trends. Specifically, large amounts of heat capacity data not only allow students to discover the equipartition theorem but also point to its limited applicability. Computer code to download and plot the temperature-dependent heat capacity data is provided.
Funder
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
Publisher
American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT)
Subject
General Physics and Astronomy