imagine that you added helium gas to a partially inflated mylar ballon, and expanded as the gas was added. During this expansion process, do you think the pressure of the helium gas inside the ballon increased , decreased or remained fairly constant? Assume the temperature of the gas remains constant. briefly explain your reasoning.
This is a nutty question, if there ever was one. Gas molecules move towards lower pressure, so if they are going from the entrance to the outside wall, they must be going to a lower pressure area, while expanding. Now as the balloon fills, the average pressure is increasing, as more molecules are crowding into the same (essentailly) volume. So I don't really know what the teacher means when by "during the expansion" .
When helium gas is added to a partially inflated Mylar balloon and it expands, the pressure of the helium gas inside the balloon decreases. This decrease in pressure can be explained using Boyle's Law.
Boyle's Law states that for a fixed amount of gas at a constant temperature, the pressure and volume of the gas are inversely proportional. In other words, as the volume of the gas increases, the pressure decreases, and vice versa.
In this scenario, as helium gas is added to the partially inflated Mylar balloon, the gas expands and occupies a larger volume. Since the temperature remains constant, Boyle's Law tells us that the pressure of the gas inside the balloon must decrease to maintain the proportionality.
The reason behind this behavior is that the gas particles have more space to move around as the balloon expands, reducing the frequency of their collisions with the walls of the balloon. This reduced frequency of collisions leads to a decrease in pressure.
So, in summary, as the Mylar balloon expands due to the addition of helium gas, the pressure of the helium gas inside the balloon decreases.