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I've been asked to find the temperature to which a 20.0°C gas must be raised to increase its root mean square (rms) speed by a given percentage. Is this possible without knowing the identity of the gas?

Asked by HeroicZach (195points) August 26th, 2009

Some help with how to attack problems like these would be really helpful (I’d be forever in your debt – you know, like in Harry Potter, it would be like one of those super-swears they have).

The problem basically tells me I have to raise the rms speed of the molecules in “a gas” by 1.0%, I have it at 20.0°C, and I need to find what temperature it should be at to have the given rms speed. As far as I know, you would have to know what gas it is, since the rms speed formula is sqrt(3RT/m), m being the molecular mass of one of the gas particles in kg (calculated by using Boltzmann’s constant and the molar mass on the periodic table).

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