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and
thus that we must have C =
!
. This gives us the form of f.
f (v) =
!
e
"
2
v
2
This is a normal or Gaussian distribution with mean zero and standard deviation
1
2
.
We also have the form for the function ! .
!(v
1
2
+ v
2
2
+ v
3
2
) =
3
"
3
exp(#
2
(v
1
2
+ v
2
2
+ v
3
2
))
Using the ideal gas law one can show that
3
2
=
m
2kT
where m is the mass of the individual molecule of gas, T is the absolute temperature, and
k is Boltzmanns constant. The velocity distribution varies only with temperature and the
mass of the molecule of gas.
To apply this to a specific gas, let us consider oxygen. The atomic weight of
oxygen is 16. The molecular weight of oxygen is 32 since two oxygen atoms bind
together in ordinary gaseous form. This gives us a value of
2
=
m
2kT
= 7.096 !10
"6
kg
J
using the standard temperature for T. This gives a value of
187.69
m
s
= 419.9 mph
as the standard deviation of the distribution of the velocity.
The Normal Distribution
For oxygen at standard temperature the root mean square speed of oxygen
molecules is determined to be 461
m
s
by a different derivation. It is given by
3p
!
where p is standard atmospheric pressure and ! is the density of our substance, in this
case oxygen, at standard temperature and pressure.
1
2!"
exp #
1
2
x#
"
( )
2
( )