If the RMS speed of a gas is 500 m/s, what is the speed of the molecules in the
Practice Questions
Q1
If the RMS speed of a gas is 500 m/s, what is the speed of the molecules in the gas?
500 m/s
250 m/s
1000 m/s
It varies
Questions & Step-by-Step Solutions
If the RMS speed of a gas is 500 m/s, what is the speed of the molecules in the gas?
Step 1: Understand what RMS speed means. RMS stands for Root Mean Square, which is a type of average speed.
Step 2: Recognize that the RMS speed of 500 m/s is not the speed of each individual molecule, but rather an average speed of all the molecules in the gas.
Step 3: Know that individual molecules will have different speeds, some faster and some slower than 500 m/s.
Step 4: Conclude that while the RMS speed gives a good estimate, it does not provide the exact speed of any single molecule.
RMS Speed – RMS (Root Mean Square) speed is a statistical measure of the speed of particles in a gas, representing an average value that accounts for the distribution of molecular speeds.
Molecular Speed Distribution – In a gas, individual molecular speeds vary due to thermal motion, and the RMS speed does not represent the speed of any single molecule.
