he behavior of the nitrogen/nitrogen bond causing it to exhibit deviated characteristics. Carbon dioxide was the last gas to be studied; it’s triatomic with two double bonds connecting oxygens to the central carbon. In a similar way to nitrogen gas, carbon dioxide does not behave according to the equipartition theorem at room temperature. Although the vibrational modes of CO2 are only partially active, they contribute more that the ones for nitrogen gas. This is a result of the bending capabilities that CO2 has, which require less energy than stretches do. The bonds in carbon dioxide have force constants of 1,857 N/m; significantly less that the force constant of nitrogen. Taking into account experimental uncertainties, the values calculated for CO2 from this procedure are what would be expected. The experimental value falls in-between both the theoretical ones derived with and without vibrational contributions, proving that for CO2, the vibrational modes are only partially active at room temperature.In studying carbon dioxide, we can consider how structural linearity affects it’s heat capacity ratio predicted by the equipartition theory. If it were non-linear, for example like SO2 or H2O, there would be a reduced number of vibrational modes contributing to it’s energy. Accounting for the depleted vibrational motions, (theoretical) would increase slightly to a value of 1.2500. It would be difficult to decipher between these two structures based off experimental values of , especially with such a questionable experimental setup. It is necessary to realize that the discrepancy between the two ratios, posed by the difference in structure, is small; such precision would be difficult to achieve....
