Technician A and Technician B are examining the same substance. Technician A records the mass, volume, and weight of the substance and decides that it is sugar. Technician B records the melting point, density, and boiling point of the substance and decides that it is salt. Which technician’s answer is more apt to be correct and why?
Say you have two gallons of water in one bucket and one gallon in another. They would weigh different, the volume is different (1 gallon vs 2), and the mass would differ. However, they are the same substance.
However, if you boiled the water in these buckets, they would both boil around 100C.
With that in mind, which property would you trust more to identify a substance such as water?
To determine which technician's answer is more likely to be correct, we can analyze the information they have gathered and compare it to the properties of sugar and salt.
Technician A has recorded the mass, volume, and weight of the substance. However, mass, volume, and weight cannot definitively identify a substance because they are generic properties that can be applied to any material. These measurements alone do not provide enough information to determine the identity of the substance accurately.
On the other hand, Technician B has recorded the melting point, density, and boiling point of the substance. These properties are specific to each substance and can help identify it accurately.
The melting point, density, and boiling point of sugar and salt are different. Sugar has a higher melting point (186°C) compared to salt (801°C), and their densities also differ. Therefore, Technician B's approach of using specific properties like melting point, density, and boiling point is more likely to lead to a correct identification of the substance.
In conclusion, based on the information provided, Technician B's answer is more apt to be correct because they used specific properties specific to the substance they were examining to make their determination.