GREPhysics.NET: GR8677 #15

GR8677 #15

Problem

GREPhysics.NET Official Solution

Statistical Mechanics $\Rightarrow$ }Probability

Probability is mostly common sense and adhering to definitions.

The probability that a gas molecule or atom is in the small cube is $P(in)=1E-6$ . The probability that it's not in that small cube is $P(not)=1-1E-6$ . Assuming independent gas molecules or atoms, i.e., the usual assumption of randomness in Stat Mech, one gets, $P(N gas atoms)=\left(1-1E-6\right)^N$ .

The answer is thus C.

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Comments

ubaraj
2007-11-01 01:15:13

the volume is 1. There can be no He atoms in the volume 10E-6. So all N atoms have to be within the volume (1-10E-6), and so the probability becomes (1-10E-6)^N. The choice is C!!

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Furious
2007-08-17 15:40:58

You really just need to look at the limiting factors in this problem.

When N is 0 the probability should be 1. That eliminates A and D.

When N is extremely high, the probability should go to 0. That eliminates E, (not that any of us thought it was E)

So that leaves us with B and C. Which both match the limiting cases, but just think about it when N is 1. When N is one there should be a very high chance that it is not in the specific 1e-6 area.

For B, the probability is 1e-6, not very high at all.
For C, the probability is 0.99999, pretty close to 1.

This helped me since, I get super confused whenever I think about probability.

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wishIwasaphysicist
2006-01-24 11:27:10

How did you connect P(Ngasatoms) = (1-1E-6)^N to answer C?

yosun
2006-02-01 22:02:05

hi wishIwasaphysicist, because each of the N molecules are independent, the probability would be multiplicative. Thus, if the particle for each particle is P, the probability for N particles would be $P^N$ .

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How did you connect P(Ngasatoms) = (1-1E-6)^N to answer C?

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