course Phy 202
I am answering the preliminary questions to the assignment in hopes to get a response as to which part of the experiment you would like me to do
Watch the KEx and KEy values as they change with each collision, representing the total x and y kinetic energies of the particles. Watch the 'red' particle for a couple of minutes, estimating the average time between its collisions and its average speed (one of the speeds given near the top of the screen corresponds to that of the 'red' particle--which is it?).
I got an average speed of 5 or 6 from the red ball
Watch the 'blue' particle, and speculate on what property of this particle is different from that of the other particles.
This particle moves alot slower, i guess it is supposed to be a heavier gas atom. I got an average speed of 2 from the blue particle
Watch as the 'red' particle sometimes turns yellow. What causes this?
What property does the particle have when it is yellow?
Im not sure why it turns yellow, but it moves faster when it is yellow.
What might the graphs represented at the right of the screen represent?
The graphs at the right of the screen may represent the total kinetic energy of the system.
Strike the 'S' key to stop the simulation, and if you are done give the appropriate response to the prompt to quit the program. CTRL-ALT-DELETE will also stop the program, but if you're not careful it will reboot your computer so avoid that option if you can.
Good. For a little additional clarification:
The 'blue' particle tends to move more slowly and to have less velocity change in a collision than a 'red' particle. This indicates that its mass is greater than that of a 'red' particle.
The graphs depict frequency distributions for the kinetic energies of a typical particle, and for the speeds of a typical particle. The frequency distribution rises to a peak then approaches the horizontal axis as an asymptote, indicating that the most frequently observed velocities are those a little below the midrange of observed velocities (e.g., around 5 on the velocity scale of the program), and that increasingly higher velocityes are less frequent, as are progressively lower velocities.
The difference between the velocity and KE distributions is subtle; since KE involves squared velocities, the KE distribution will exhibit greater concavity.
Do go ahead and do #3 on this experiment.