Finding height of fluid in a barometer | Fluids | Physics | Khan Academy - YouTube

Channel: Khan Academy

[1]
In the last video, we learned that the pressure at some
[4]
depth in a fluid is equal to the density of the fluid times
[10]
how deep we are in the fluid, or how high is the column of
[13]
fluid above us times gravity.
[16]
Let's see if we can use that to solve a fairly typical
[19]
problem that you'll see in your physics class, or even on
[22]
an AP physics test.
[24]
Let's say that I have a bowl.
[37]
And in that bowl, I have mercury, and then I also have
[41]
this kind of inverted test tube that I stick in the
[45]
middle of-- this is the side view of the bowl, and I'll
[47]
draw everything shortly.
[48]
Let's say my test tube looks something like this.
[58]
Let's say I have no air in this test tube-- there's a
[60]
vacuum here-- but the outside of the bowl, this whole area
[63]
out here, this is exposed to the air.
[64]
We are actually on Earth, or actually in Paris, France, at
[68]
sea level, because that's what an atmosphere is defined as--
[74]
the atmospheric pressure.
[75]
Essentially, the way you could think about it-- the weight of
[77]
all of the air above us is pushing down on the surface of
[81]
this bowl at one atmosphere.
[84]
An atmosphere is just the pressure of all of the air
[87]
above you at sea level in Paris, France.
[91]
And in the bowl, I have mercury.
[125]
Let's say that that mercury-- there's no air in here, and it
[128]
is actually going to go up this column a little bit.
[131]
We're going to do the math as far as-- one, we'll see why
[134]
it's going up, and then we'll do the math to figure out how
[136]
high up does it go.
[139]
Say the mercury goes up some distance-- this
[144]
is all still mercury.
[149]
And this is actually how a barometer works; this is
[151]
something that measures pressure.
[154]
Over here at this part, above the mercury, but still within
[159]
our little test tube, we have a vacuum-- there is no air.
[165]
Vacuum is one of my favorite words, because it has
[167]
two u's in a row.
[172]
We have this set up, and so my question to you is-- how high
[175]
is this column of mercury going to go?
[182]
First of all, let's just have the intuition as to why this
[185]
thing is going up to begin with.
[187]
We have all this pressure from all of the air above us-- I
[189]
know it's a little un-intuitive for us, because
[192]
we're used to all of that pressure on our shoulders all
[195]
of the time, so we don't really imagine it, but there
[198]
is literally the weight of the atmosphere above us.
[201]
That's going to be pushing down on the surface of the
[205]
mercury on the outside of the test tube.
[208]
Since there's no pressure here, the mercury is going to
[211]
go upwards here.
[214]
This state that I've drawn is a static state-- we have
[216]
assumed that all the motion has stopped.
[220]
So let's try to solve this problem.
[221]
Oh, and there are a couple of things we have to know before
[224]
we do this problem.
[226]
It's mercury, and we know the specific gravity-- I'm using
[230]
terminology, because a lot of these problems, the hardest
[233]
part is the terminology-- of mercury is 13.6.
[249]
That's often a daunting statement on a test-- you know
[252]
how to do all the math, and all of a sudden you go, what
[253]
is specific gravity?
[255]
All specific gravity is, is the ratio of how dense that
[259]
substance is to water.
[261]
All that means is that mercury is 13.6
[269]
times as dense as water.
[280]
Hopefully, after the last video-- because I told you
[282]
to-- you should have memorized the density of water.
[284]
It's 1,000 kilograms per meter cubed, so the density of
[288]
mercury-- let's write that down, and that's the rho, or
[293]
little p, depending on how you want to do it-- is going to be
[296]
equal to 13.6 times the density of water, or times
[301]
1,000 kilograms per meter cubed.
[311]
Let's go back to the problem.
[314]
What we want to know is how high this
[317]
column of mercury is.
[319]
We know that the pressure-- let's consider this point
[322]
right here, which is essentially the base of this
[325]
column of mercury.
[327]
What we're saying is the pressure on the base of this
[330]
column of mercury right here, or the pressure at this point
[333]
down, has to be the same thing as the pressure up, because
[339]
the mercury isn't moving-- we're in a static state.
[342]
We learned several videos ago that the pressure in is equal
[345]
to the pressure out on a liquid system.
[350]
Essentially, I have one atmosphere pushing down here
[353]
on the outside of the surface, so I must have one atmosphere
[356]
pushing up here.
[359]
The pressure pushing up at this point right here-- we
[363]
could imagine that we have that aluminum foil there
[365]
again, and just imagine where the pressure is hitting-- is
[369]
one atmosphere, so the pressure down right here must
[374]
be one atmosphere.
[378]
What's creating the pressure down right there?
[380]
It's essentially this column of water, or it's this
[385]
formula, which we learned in the last video.
[388]
What we now know is that the density of the mercury, times
[391]
the height of the column of water, times the acceleration
[393]
of gravity on Earth-- which is where we are-- has to equal
[397]
one atmosphere, because it has to offset the atmosphere
[400]
that's pushing on the outside and pushing up here.
[403]
The density of mercury is this: 13.6 thousand, so 13,600
[412]
kilogram meters per meter cubed.
[418]
That's the density times the height-- we don't know what
[421]
the height is, that's going to be in meters-- times the
[423]
acceleration of gravity, which is 9.8
[426]
meters per second squared.
[429]
It's going to be equal to one atmosphere.
[432]
Now you're saying-- Sal, this is strange.
[434]
I've never seen this atmosphere before-- we've
[435]
talked a lot about it, but how does an atmosphere relate to
[438]
pascals or newtons?
[441]
This is something else you should memorize: one
[443]
atmosphere is equal to 103,000 pascals, and that also equals
[452]
103,000 newtons per meter squared.
[458]
One atmosphere is how much we're pushing down out here.
[461]
So it's how much we're pushing up here, and that's going to
[463]
be equal to the amount of pressure at this point from
[465]
this column of mercury.
[467]
One atmosphere is exactly this much, which equals 103,000
[474]
newtons per meters squared.
[479]
If we divide both sides by 13,609.8, we get that the
[487]
height is equal to 103,000 newtons per meter cubed, over
[501]
13,600 kilograms per meter cubed times 9.8 meters per
[516]
second squared.
[520]
Make sure you always have the units right-- that's the
[521]
hardest thing about these problems, just to know that an
[524]
atmosphere is 103,000 pascals, which is also the same as
[529]
newtons per meter squared.
[532]
Let's just do the math, so let me type this in-- 103,000
[541]
divided by 13,600 divided by 9.8 equals 0.77.
[557]
We were dealing with newtons, so height is
[559]
equal to 0.77 meters.
[562]
And you should see that the units actually work, because
[564]
we have a meters cubed in the denominator up here, we have a
[567]
meters cubed in the denominator down here, and
[569]
then we have kilogram meters per second squared here.
[572]
We have newtons up here, but what's a newton?
[575]
A newton is a kilogram meter squared per second, so when
[579]
you divide you have kilogram meters squared per second
[582]
squared, and here you have kilogram
[584]
meter per second squared.
[585]
When you do all the division of the units, all you're left
[587]
with is meters, so we have 0.77 meters, or roughly 77
[591]
centimeters-- is how high this column of mercury is.
[594]
And you can make a barometer out of it-- you can say, let
[597]
me make a little notch on this test tube, and that represents
[599]
one atmosphere.
[601]
You can go around and figure out how many atmospheres
[604]
different parts of the globe are.
[605]
Anyway, I've run out of time.
[607]
See you in the next video.