A chemist notices some silvery liquid on the floor in her lab. She wonders if someone accidentally broke a mercury thermometer, but did not thoroughly clean up the mess. She decides to find out of the silver stuff is really mercury. From her tests with the substance, she finds out that the melting point for the liquid is 275 K. A reference book says that the melting point for mercury is -38.87°C. Is this substance mercury? Explain your answer and show all relevant calculations.



Answer :

The relationship between degrees Kelvin and degrees Celsius is:

K = C + 273.15

So, -38.87 + 273.15 = 234.28

So, the substance is not mercury because the melting points in Kelvin are unequal.

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