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You throw an ice cube with velocity V into a hot, gravity-free, evacuated space. The cube gradually melts to liquid water and then boils to water vapor. (a) Is it a system of particles all the time? (b) If so, is it the same system of particles? (c) Does the motion of the center of mass undergo any abrupt changes? (d) Does the total linear momentum change?

You throw an ice cube with velocity V into a hot, gravity-free, evacuated space. The cube gradually melts to liquid water and then boils to water vapor. (a) Is it a system of particles all the time? (b) If so, is it the same system of particles? (c) Does the motion of the center of mass undergo any abrupt changes? (d) Does the total linear momentum change?

Grade:10

1 Answers

Jitender Pal
askIITians Faculty 365 Points
8 years ago
(a) Yes, it is the system of particles all the time but when it was ice, the particle were packed in a small volume and occupied fixed positions but when they melted down to water and finally to steam the particles got dispersed in the space thereby occupy larger volume and changing their position continuously.
(b) As explained in part (a), as the ice melts to water and finally vaporizes, and the particles of the system occupied larger volume because there was no constraint to the position they could occupy.
(c) The center of mass does not undergo any abrupt changes because of the symmetrical transfer of thermal energy to the particles, and their identical behavior once they gain that energy.
(d) The total linear momentum of the particle does not change. This can be seen from the fact that as the particle got more energized and move with larger velocity, there was another particle moving in the opposite direction with the same velocity thereby cancelling the effect of each other and maintaining the linear momentum.

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