General Chemistry: Concept Development and Application

Introduction to the concept Development Study Approach

Semana 1: Atomic Molecular Theory I
Transcripcion PPT
Today, we're going to begin our study of chemistry right at the foundation
with the atomic molecular theory. The material we're going to cover here
is in the first Concept Development Study titled, the Atomic Molecular
Theory. And you should read that and familiarize yourself with it in
preparation for listening to this lecture, as well as the second one. So at the
foundation, chemistry is really the study of atoms and molecules. What are
the properties of atoms, how do they combine to form molecules? What are
the properties of molecules based upon the atoms that make them? And
how do atoms rearrange in the course of the chemical reaction to form
new molecules out of the original molecules? And what are the properties
of those new molecules that we observe from the chemical reaction that's
taking place? And how does this all relate to the energy associated with
chemical reactions? So we really need to understand existence of atoms
molecules, and that is in essence then, the atomic molecular theory, which
is what we will develop in these first two lectures. So just as a
foreshadowing, where are we going with this, what is it that we want to
know? If we look at the world around us, think about all of the objects, all of
the spaces around us and so forth. What we discovered, what we will
discover, is that all of those materials are all made out of tiny individual
particles that we can't see that are called atoms.
Atoms themselves are the fundamental particles that make up the pure
substances that we call elements. And as you can see, as defined here,
the elements are those pure substances that cannot be further simplified.
There are over 50 million known substances, pure substances compounds
as we will call them in our world and only a little over a 100 of those only
100 materials are elements themselves the simplest of these. And even out
of those little over a 100, far few of those are really commonly occurring in
most of the compounds. So, how is it possible that such a small number of
pure substances, the elements, are able to combine to form such an
amazingly large number of, of other kinds of substances?
And the answer is that atoms combine in simple integer ratios to form
molecules as seen here. And that molecules are themselves now the
fundamental components of the larger set of pure substances that we call
compounds. And compounds are pure substances, which can actually be
broken down into elements. These are really the fundamental principles of
chemistry. Everything we know about chemistry is based upon these
simple precepts and then sort of flushing those out with more details. So if
we're going to understand chemistry, we're going to have to believe in
these things. And at the outset, what we might want to then ask is, how do
we know that atoms exist? After all, if you look at the substances around
you, you don't actually see the atoms.
The atoms are far, far too small for us to detect with our normal senses. So
we need some other means to do that. Well, in a contemporary world, it
turns out that there is a way, that in essence, we can see atoms. We can
use an instrument called a scanning tunneling microscope. In this particular
case, the image that I'm showing you was taken at IBM's Almaden Labs
about 25 years ago now. And in this image, what we are actually seeing
with each one of these little bumps here is an individual iron atom and
it's sitting on the surface of a piece of copper. There's another one here. In
fact, every one of those little red things there is an iron atom. Now, how this
particular image was produced, how a scaling tunnelling microscope
works. How they use that gadget to precisely arrange the atoms to form
this rather interesting looking character set that actually means atom is a
topic for a much, much later lecture. All this really implies that we
actually have a means by which we can sort of see atoms. But there's
really two problems with taking this as the conclusion. One is, we could
never have built a scanning tunneling microscope if we didn't already know
that atoms exist. In fact, it's based upon the fundamental principals of the
atomic theory as it was developed over many, many years. But even
beyond that, imagine that we did build a scanning tunneling microscope
when we took this image. We would have no real means to know that what
we should do in interpreting that little bump there. We shouldn't interpret
that necessarily as an atom, we wouldn't know actually what that little blob
was that we were taking a look at there. It's only because we already
believe in existence of atoms that we know that those little individual points
on there are in fact iron atoms.
So if that's the case, how would we observe atoms? In fact a little over 200
years ago, when we found that molecular theory was developed. What
observations were made that persuade us in the existence of atoms? What
actually can we observe? We'll pause for a moment. Look at the objects
around you and think about what their properties are. What are the things
that you see? And what observations can we make about those things that
we see? I put a few of them down here. Every object around you has some
sort of volume, it takes up some space. It has mass, it weighs something. It
has some density that gives us some sense about whether we think it's a
light object or a heavy object, depending upon its mass per volume. It's got
a shape that may vary in the course of some kind of chemical or physical
process. It has color and those are, are interesting properties as well. And
then, there are other more chemical things, like say solubility or
conductivity that might be interesting properties to study as well. It turns out
that the property that we're actually going to study here is density. I'm
sorry. It's not density at all, it's mass. The property we're actually going to
study here is mass.
The reason why we're going to choose mass is actually for reasons that will
be clear as we study the next couple of slides here. What can we study in
mass? To do that, let's actually take one particular chemical compound
here. Here's our compound. It's going to be copper carbonate. And as the
name implies, copper carbonate is a material that's made up of the
elements copper, carbon, and oxygen. If mass is an interesting thing to
study, then maybe what we should do is weigh out particular sample of the
copper carbonate. Say 100 grams as is suggested here of the compound
and decompose that 100 grams of the compound into its
constituent elements, namely the copper in the carbon in the oxygen. And
then, we can take the masses of those elements after we decompose
them. If we run that experiment, actually, what we discover is that there is
51.5 grams of carbon produced when we decompose the copper
carbonate. There is also 9.7 grams of carbon and there's 38.8 grams of
oxygen. Now, that's just a experimental result. There's no way that we
could have known that, that was true. We run the experiment and we see
what we get. But there is an interesting observation there. Interesting
observation one is, if we notice carefully, summing together the masses of
the constituent elements and adding them all up is actually exactly 100
grams. And that's kind of reassuring, because we started off with 100
grams and we wound up with 100 grams. So apparently, nothing got lost
along the way. That is what suggests that mass is actually an interesting
quantity to study. Let's run this experiment again. This time let's take 200
grams of the compound and let's see if in fact every time we do this
experiment, we wind up with a similar kind of result, okay? We'll run the
experiment, and it turns out, if we decompose 100 grams, I'm sorry, 200
grams of the compound, we get 103 grams of the copper. And we get 19.4
grams of the carbon. And we get 77.6 grams of the oxygen. Those are
interesting numbers, for a variety of reasons. First of which is, if I add them
all together, I get exactly 200 grams again. Suggesting that, in fact, what
we start off with is what we wind up with. In some sense, then, what we're
discovering is that mass is actually a conserved quantity. That the total
mass is the same at the beginning as it is at the end. And in fact, if we
study many, many chemical reactions of this type, we will actually observe
something called the law of conservation of mass. That every time we take
some chemical process, and we weigh all the materials that begin in the
process, and we weigh all the materials that we wind up at the end of the
process, that the sum is the same. What this allows it to do, is
actually consider the mass to be essentially sort of an accounting system,
by which nothing gets lost. During a chemical reaction, we can sort of find
out where everything went by taking masses. So that's an interesting thing
to do. There's also something else interesting about these data. Probably,
if you're good with numbers, you've noticed this already. But let's go back
and take a look, and notice that here, out of 100 grams of the compound,
51.5 grams were copper and out of 200 grams of the carbon, compound,
103 grams were copper. This number is exactly twice of this number, just
as this number is twice of this number. In other words, when I double the
mass of the compound, I doubled the mass of the copper, copper
involved. And likewise, you can see that I doubled the amount of carbon
and I doubled the amount of oxygen as well. It appears then, that in fact,
the elements are fixed proportions to each other by mass. In fact, just
looking at these data, I can tell that copper carbonate is 51.5%
copper regardless of the sample size that I took. And, it is 9.7% carbon,
regardless of the sample size, and it is 38.8% oxygen, again, regardless of
the sample size that we have exactly the same mass ratio in each one of
these things. We should test and see whether or not that shows up sort of
consistently.
So let's run a couple of other chemical reactions. This has only been one,
particular one. Here's one. Let's take a compound which is a combination
of carbon and chlorine, we'll call it carbon chloride for now. Won't give you
the molecular formula, because I don't know what the molecular formula is,
because I don't know that molecules exist yet. I don't even know that atoms
exist yet. But if I take 100 grams of this carbon chlorine compound and
break it up into the carbon and the chlorine, what we observe is that, that
100 grams is 92.2 grams of chlorine and 7.8 grams of carbon. The sum of
those two is clearly 100 grams, so in fact we have conserved the mass just
like we thought that we should. But likewise, if we were to take say oh, 50
grams of the carbon chloride. And measure what the amounts of mass are
that, of, of the carbon and the chlorine which are involved there. It turns out
we get 3.9 grams of carbon and we get 46.1 grams of the chlorine. Well,
that's interesting. What that tells me is that the mass ratios of the chlorine
and the carbon are exactly the same regardless of the sample size.
Here's a different way we could actually look at this problem. It's a lead
sulfide question. So we get the same kinds of things here, right? We're
going to take a 100 grams of the compound combining containing lead
and sulfur and break that compound into the constituent lead and
sulfur. And here, you can see, that the compound comes out to be 86.6%
lead and 13.4% sulfur. What if we tried to change those? What if we said,
you know, look I'm not happy with that? I would like to see if I couldn't wind
up with some different ratios. So I'm just going to find a 100, I'm going to
find 1 gram of sulfur and I'm going to mix that together with 10 grams of
lead. Maybe I could actually combine them in that proportion. And then, I
would predict that I would get 11 grams of lead sulfur, because I now
believe in the law of conservation of mass. So I'll react them together and
try to get 11 grams of lead sulfide. It turns out if I do react them together, I
get 7.52 grams of lead sulfide. Again, I'm going to write out the name lead
sulfide, rather than give the molecular formula. Because we don't yet know
that atoms exist, so we can't know what the molecular formula is. Well,
that's interesting. There's a couple interesting things about it. One is I didn't
get 11 grams of lead sulfide, the other is I didn't get 11 grams of anything.
And I ought to of conserved mass during the course of this chemical
reaction. Well, it turns out we did. There's just 3.48 grams of lead left over.
What that means is apparently, I can't just combine lead and sulfur in any
amounts that I want to. I can only combine them in a particular ratio, but
let's try again. Let's add some extra sulfur this time. Maybe if I add sulfur, I
can make more. Notice, I only use 6.52 grams of the lead, so I'm only
going to use 6.52 grams of the lead again, but this time I'll use more sulfur
and see if I can't get more lead sulfide out of that amount of lead. And the
answer is no. I get 7.52 grams of lead sulfide exactly again, and let's see
then if that's the case. Is there some left over? Well it turns out, yes, there
is. There's 1 gram of left over sulfur. In fact, then I can only really react 1
gram of sulfur with 6.52 grams of lead to wind up with 7.52 g of lead sulfide
and not have anything left over afterwards. What that tells me actually is
that there's a fixed mass proportion that has to be combined, and that fixed
mass proportion is pretty clear from what we have back over here on the
screen. Apparently, lead sulfide, the lead sulfide is apparently 86.6% lead
and it is 13.4% sulfur and I cannot vary those proportions.
What we've actually discovered is a new law of nature here. We've
discovered something that is called the law of definite proportions. You can
see what it says here and it's exactly what we just observed. In a
compound, the component elements are in a definite ratio by mass. We've
seen that with the lead and sulfur. We saw it with the carbon and the co,
and the chlorine. And we saw it with the copper, and the carbon, and the
oxygen. That regardless of the sample size we take, we can only get
particular proportions. And even if we try to force together different
proportions, we don't actually wind up forcing the, the elements to combine
in some different way. This is out of our control. It is a fundamental law of
nature that these materials will react the way that they do in the mass
proportions that they do. Now, does that mean that atoms exist and the
reason that they're restricted is because we can only combine atoms in
specific ways? It turns out that the answer to that question is, yes, but have
we proven that that's true?
Is it the case that the law of definite proportions has proven to us that the
reason, for example, that I can only combine this amount of lead with this
amount of sulfur is because these are lead atoms and sulfur atoms and
they are combining in a particular integer ratio? Well, maybe not. In fact,
the chemists 200 years ago were not persuaded by the law of definite
proportions, because we could answer the following questions. Could we
combine things in definite proportions that are not particles to arrive at
particular combinations by analogy, for example? I can take red and I can
take yellow and I can mix them together and I can get orange. And if I want
to get a particular shade of orange, I have to mix together a particular ratio
of red and yellow. But that doesn't in any way imply that somehow the
colors red or yellow, or particularly, doesn't imply that at all. In fact, I could
combine the red and yellow in different ways and get different colors of
orange, but for any specific color orange, I can only get a particular
combination, even though, there don't seem to be particles. Could I mix
together particles that don't go together in definite ratios? The answer to
that question is also yes. Let's consider, instead of red and yellow as
abstract colors, let's make them M&M's. I can combine red M&M's and
yellow M&M's in any kind of mixture that I want to in any proportion that I
want to. And so, just the fact that I know that they're particles doesn't lead
to definite proportions. The conclusion then is that we have not yet proven
that atoms and molecules exist. We need to take some more data, but we
are well along the right track here. And what we will now do is examine
other mass ratios. And we'll compare those mass ratios in the next lecture
to be able to establish the existence of atoms and molecules.
Semana 1: Atomic Molecular Theory II
We're going to pick up where we left off in the last lecture. You'll recall what
we were doing was developing the atomic molecular theory by examining
mass measurements, that will lead us to a conclusion that all material is
made of atoms and molecules. This is the material from the first concept
development study, which we did not complete in the first lecture, but which
we will complete in this one. If you haven't read it yet, it will be worth your
while to familiarize yourself with the material from that reading
before watching the rest of this lecture.

In the first lecture, we actually developed something based upon mass

measurements called the Law of Definite Proportions. What we did was to
decompose individual compounds into their constituent elements, weighed
amounts of the, relevant, relevant amounts of each of the elements by
mass. Take the ratios of those, and we discovered that those ratios are
fixed from sample to sample for any given compound. We can't vary those
ratios by mixing together different amounts of those compounds. Instead
we have to, take them just in the proportions which we're allowed by the
Law of Definite Proportions essentially. We're going to examine that a little
but further now, because we haven't really developed the atomic molecular
theory out of that, by looking at a few other examples of the Law of
Definite Proportions.
Here we have a few of them. Here are some hydrocarbons, meaning that
these are compounds contained entirely or, composed entirely of the
elements carbon and hydrogen. The simplest of those hydrogen carbons is
called Methane, and just like with the Law of, Definite Proportions, we can
decompose each of these compouds into their Carbon and Hydrogen
components, take the masses of each and determine the
mass composition. So, for example notice here that Methane is 74.9%
Carbon and it is 25.1% oxygen. And what's also interesting here is that we
noticed that are couple of other compounds we have listed here, both
Ethane and Benzene. Turns out there were enormous number
of compounds composed just of carbon and hydrogen. Carbon and
hydrogen combined in an enormous number in different ways, each one of
which will have its own mass percentages. That does not violate the Law of
Different Proportions though, even though the Law of Definite Proportion
said, in a particular compound, the elements combine in a different ratio.
These are different compounds, they've distinctively different chemical and
physical properties, so we can differentiate them. There is nothing in the
Law of Definite Proportions that says we couldn't have more than one set
of proportions, and that those different proportions could lead to different
compounds. So, in fact, we're going to look at multiple proportions as we
analyze these data. And here we've got, as it illustrates for example,
different ratios for Ethane than we had for, for Benzine, and likewise,
we can look at different ratios for Benzine and for Methane. Staring at
those numbers, there's no obvious pattern in those numbers at all, nothing
that jumps out at us that says okay, I can understand why I have
those particular ratios.
So what we need to do is actually figure out is there some way that we can
analyze these data, make it easier to understand, rather than just looking at
percent compositions by mass. One way to do that is to say instead of
taking 100%, let's take 100 grams. So instead you'll notice here we have
taken a column of data, in which every element has 100, or I'm sorry, every
compound has 100 grams of that compound. And then by taking the
percentages and multiplying by 100 grams we can wind up with the
masses of carbon and hydrogen. Well the numbers don't really
change right? All we've done is to look at different masses rather than to
look at different compositions. Again, there's really not anything obvious
here that we could get out of these data, that jump at us and say there's
some kind of a pattern. But one way we could do this, is to try to now look
more carefully at the ratios, somewhat more simply in each of these
compounds.

So for example, what if we were to take n Methane, not 100 grams of

Methane, but rather, imagine instead what we did was to take 1 gram of
hydrogen and ask how much carbon will be associated with that 1 gram of
hydrogen. We're going to actually do that calculation essentially all we
need to do is divide the mass of hydrogen by 25.1, to get 1. An so to keep
the ratio the same we would have to take 74.9 grams carbon divided
by 25.1, and we would wind up with a number that turns out actually to be
equal to 2.98 grams for one carbon. For the carbon, when there's a mass
of hydrogen which is 1. So let's make a new table now. In the new table
you notice, this time, we're going to take the masses of the hydrogens to all
be 1, rather than the total mass to be equal to 100. And we can do
calculations just like the ones that we said a little while ago, except now
what we're going to do with these calculations, where we'll take
the previous masses and divide by the mass of the hydrogen. And in this
case we get 2.98 grams of carbon, just like we showed before. How about
for the, Ethane? Let's go back and look at the Ethane then. And in Ethane
we will then take for 1 gram of the Hydrogen, we need to take 79.9 grams
divided by 20.1 and that turns out to then be equal to, if we get
our calculators out, 3.97 grams. So let's put that into our table back here as
well, 3.97 grams of each. Notice that the masses of the compounds are
varying all over the place now, right? This 3.98 grams of, of, for the total
mass of Methane, and this now 4.97 grams for the total mass of the
Ethane, so we're no longer holding the total masses of the compounds
comparable. Let's do the Benzene as well. Go back and look at the
numbers here, for Benzene. Let's see, again we want 1 gram of
the Hydrogen. So for the benz-, or for the carbon, we need 92.3 grams
divided by 7.7, and if we do that math we wind up with 11.98 grams. So
let's fill that into our table here as well. We have 11.98 grams, and back
over in the first column then this going to be 12.98. And those numbers
don't particularly add anything to our intuition from the total mass, but if we
look at the masses of the carbon we discover something rather interesting
here, right. Those numbers are not quite so random any more, in fact, you
can see a pattern. Basically, that first number there looks pretty much looks
like 3, right? And the second number looks like 4, and the third number
looks like 12. We have, in fact, discovered a simple integer ratio of the
masses of the carbons. That's a particularly interesting outcome,
right? Because ordinarily, we wouldn't expect to see some kind of a simple
ratio. We didn't see simple ratios when we were examining things for the
masses of the, when we had 100 grams.
Let's try again than, and consider, what if, instead of fixing the mass of the
hydrogen, we fixed the mass of the carbon at say, 1 gram, we could
certainly do exactly the same kind of work. To do that, we need to go back
and ask, okay, what were the mass ratios? So if instead for the methane,
I'm going to take the mass of the carbon to be 1 gram, then for the
hydrogen, I need to take 25.1 grams divided by 74.9, and if i do that math,
it turns out to be 0.335. So we'll go back now and look in our new table,
and we will enter a 0.335 grams for the mass of the hydrogen, which
will combine with the mass of carbon to make methane. And the total mass
over here clears 1.335, not a particularly noteworthy number. If we do the
exact same calculations now for ethane and benzene, since we're starting
to get the pattern here, we have 0.251 and 1.251 as the masses. And for
benzine then we have 0.0, I'm sorry, 0.083 and 1.083. And again now, if we
look at these numbers, these numbers are not quite conspicuous as the
numbers we're for our previous analysis, right. However, if we were to
divide each of these masses of hydrogens, by the mass of the lowest
hydrogen, we discover a really simple ratio here, in fact. It turns out that the
ratio here is, if this is 1, then this one is in fact 3, and this one is in fact 4.
So again, we have simple integer ratio, of the masses of the hydrogens.
What we have in fact discovered is a rather interesting pattern here.
This interesting pattern is something that we actually refer to now as the
Law of Multiple Proportions. The Law of Multiple Proportions actually is a
somewhat complicated thing, because you notice we had to do a lot of
analysis here to figure out, you know, how we would see these simple
integer ratios. But here we go. Notice what we did, was we took two
different compounds, or in this case even three compounds, of the same
two elements carbon and hydrogens, and we mixed the, fixed the mass of
one of the elements. Either carbon or hydrogen at 1 gram and then we
calculated the mass of the second element using the Law of
Definite Proportions. Once we had that mass of the second element, we
compared those masses of the second elements, between the
two compounds. And it's really important that we look at the mass from one
compound next to the next compound. And when we do that, we discover
that we get these simple integer ratios. Now that's an interesting
conclusion, but before we really try to do too much from that, we should
attempt to verify whether or not this happens in other compounds
So let's actually look at a set of nitrogen oxides for example. So here we've
got three different compounds formed from nitrogen and oxygen. If we take
a hundred grams of each one of them, then we can use in the Law
of Definite Proportions figure out, do the mass analysis. How much
nitrogen and how much oxygen are in each of these compounds. And here
are the numbers, and if we look at these numbers just sort of raw,
eh, there's not very much interesting here, right? If I look at this set of
numbers, I don't see a pattern. If I look at this set of numbers, I don't see a
pattern there either. But remember in the Law of Multiple Proportions, what
we really need to do, is we need to fix the mass of one of the elements. So,
in fact, what we're going to do is we're going to fix the mass of the nitrogen,
and then compare it to the masses of the oxygen. It's the same analysis we
did a little while ago, so we won't go through the details of it. But here's
what we wind up with, in each case now, I have the mass of nitrogen is 1,
and the mass of oxygen are these set of numbers which are back here,
right. And if I look at those numbers, then in fact I can do a simple
calculation, and I can compare the masses of the oxygen, of the oxygens,
or the mass of the oxygen component, in the different compounds. And
notice they are in the ratio 2.28 to 1.14 to 0.57. And if your eyes are good,
then you'll actually notice that 1.14 is double 1.-, 0.57, and 2.28 is double
1.14. So this is, in fact, a simple integer ratio of 4 to 2 to 1. Once again, we
see simple integer ratios. Well what is the significance of these simple
integer ratios, why do we care? The answer has to do with asking the
question, what are the integers. What is so particularly significant when we
observe integers, rather than just any other kind of number? So for
example, if I measure my own height, my own height can't really be
measured in terms of integers. I might say I'm 5 foot 10 inches, or that, that
would be a total of then, what, 70 inches tall, but I'm not precisely 70
inches tall, you know, there's some fraction in there. Likewise, whatever my
mass is, it's not some integer. And in fact, the integers that we, the masses
that we are observing in the compounds themselves are not integers. And
again, if I go back and look at these particular numbers, the number
themselves are not integers, right. It's the ratios that are integers. So, what
does that tell me? It tells me in fact that when I take a mass of oxygen to
combine with the specific amount of nitrogen, I can only do so in a multiple
of a fixed mass unit. So the integers then are used for counting, we always
count things with integers. And what we must be doing in this particular
case, these integers, the ones that we are observing, here the 4 to 2 to 1
ratio that we observe. Those integers themselves must be counting,
something. What are they counting? What they are counting, is in fact
a multiple of some fixed unit of mass. These are multiples, integer
multiples, of a fixed unit of mass. And apparently, oxygen can only be
given to us when we react it with a specific amount of nitrogen, in one of
those fixed units of mass. Well quite frankly, as soon as I've used the word
fixed unit of mass, I've discovered that mass is particulate. That it only
comes in little particles of mass and that the amount of mass of oxygen it
can have, can only be some multiple of that amount. We'll call that fixed
unit of mass an atom, and in this particular case, an oxygen atom. What
that means is that the Law of Multiple Proportions, which we just stated a
little while ago, is fundamentally the proof that we need to know that there
are, there, is absolutely the case that mass comes in integers, or in integral
little particle units. And we can only take integer amounts of those units
when we combine them together. Now we could repeat this whole analysis,
fix the mass of oxygen at one, calculate the mass of nitrogen, and we will
discover that nitrogen must also come in those fixed integer units
What that means is that we've actually now developed, the Atomic
Molecular Theory. And here are those principles, and we had stated them
in a previous lecture. That each element is composed of these little
identical particles of atoms. And that these atoms, themselves have
a same characteristic mass such that no matter what I do, when I react
these materials together, there have to be a simple integer ratio of those
masses, because I can only take integer amounts of particles. I can't take
parts of particles, I can't divide these particles up. Notice, that of course,
according to the Law of Conservation of Mass, the, the numbers and
masses of these cannot change during a chemical reaction. And
furthermore, when I combine these atoms, I can only combine them in
very specific ratios. That means in fact, that I am only going to be able to
do combinations in simple whole number ratios and that that's what's going
to give rise to our molecules.
So these data now establish clearly the existence of atoms and molecules,
but they leave behind some really important questions. Particularly, if
atoms combine in simple integer ratios to form molecules, what are those
integer ratios? What, in fact, are these integers? We don't know, the data
don't tell us. Because we don't have the means to count them
. Let's go back and look at these data here, and say okay, it looks like the
oxygen's are in ratio 4 to 2 to 1. Does that mean, that for example,
compound A has twice as many oxygen's as compound B? And the answer
is no. It may or may not tell us that, because what we have done here is to
fix a mass of nitrogen. We have fixed a mass of nitrogen, but we have not
in fact fixed how many Nitrogen atoms there are in any particular molecule,
we don't know the answer to that. We only know in ratio 2, a fixed number
of nitrogens. There is a ratio of the oxygens, which is 4 to 2 to 1. What that
tells us then, when we go back here, is we do not know those integer
ratios. We've determined that there are molecules, but we don't have a
means to analyze those molecules and figure out how many of each type
there are. What we fundamentally then need, is some way to count
atoms. I need to be able to count the numbers of nitrogens, and count the
numbers of oxygens and then take the ratio between those two. Because if
then I could do that, I could know what the molecular formula were,
the ratios of atoms in each of compound A, compound B and compound C
of those nitrogen oxides. So in the next lecture, which will begin concept
development study 2, we will figure out how we actually can count atoms,
and we'll use a couple of different techniques to do that.