The temperature, T. of a given mass of gas varies inversely with its volume,V. The temperature of 500 cm3 of a certain gas is 2.5 Celsius. What will the temperature be when it is compressed to a volume of 100cm3

V T = k

*** IF *** I assume this is true then:

500 * 2.5 = k = 1250
so
100 T = 1250
T = 12.5 C

I guess that is the answer they want, but in fact V T = constant ONLY if you use degrees KELVIN which is degrees C + 273

so really
500 * 275.5 = k = 137,750
so
100 T = 137,750
T = 1377.5 Kelvin
= 1104 Centigrade

By the way, that would be impossible without changing the pressure as well.

I got a different problem: same words but 90 cm^3 with 25 degrees Celcius and what will it be when compressed to 20 cm^3. I figured out that the numbers are in relation to one another. So I figured out the answer is 6 because the number shrunk, 90 to 20 is almost dividing by 5, same with 25 it is almost divided by 5. That's how I got to my answer, it might be wrong but that's the logic I used

OK so I used Damon's strategy it is more likely to be the right way to do it because I got 112.5 and that's an answer choice. So is the formula (a*b)/c

where a, b, and c are the three terms in order in the word problem?

To solve this problem, we can use the inverse variation relationship between temperature and volume:

T ∝ 1/V

We can rewrite this relationship as:

T = k/V

Where k is a constant. We can use the given information to find the value of k:

When the volume is 500 cm^3, the temperature is 2.5 Celsius.

2.5 = k/500

To find the value of k, we can solve this equation:

k = 2.5 * 500 = 1250

Now that we have the value of k, we can use it to find the temperature when the volume is 100 cm^3:

T = 1250/100 = 12.5 Celsius

Therefore, the temperature will be 12.5 Celsius when the gas is compressed to a volume of 100 cm^3.

So the correct answer is B) 12.5 c.