States of matter sim
Substance X is the lessons' example, not a real substance: it melts at 45 °C and boils at 130 °C.
States of matter · covers the GCSE, IGCSE, O-Level topic
What the sim shows
Substance X is the lessons' example, not a real substance: it melts at 45 °C and boils at 130 °C. Its heat capacities and latent heats are this desk's choice (melting 120 J/g, boiling 380 J/g), picked so the boiling plateau is longer, as the lesson says: boiling has to pull the particles completely apart. Water and carbon dioxide use data-book values. The plate puts in, or takes out, a steady 2.0 W, so each plateau lasts latent heat ÷ power, and each slope rises at power ÷ (mass × heat capacity). We take no heat lost to the air. The particles follow the model: how many are solid, liquid or gas comes from the heat put in, and their speed goes as the square root of the temperature in kelvin, so from 25 °C to 180 °C they move only about 1.23 times as fast. Gas particles look faster because nothing holds them. In the closed tray we leave out the few particles that evaporate below the boiling point; the open tray shows them. The impure sample's ranges and the evaporation rates are this desk's estimates. 36 particles stand for 10 g; they are a picture, not a count. The clock runs faster than real time.
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