Density Determination Essay

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Density Determination Introduction: The purpose of this lab is to identify several different substances by determine the density and other physical characteristics of the substances. Density is an important property of matter and may be used as a method of identification. The density of a substance would not change based on the mass or volume of the substance. Mass is the quantity of matter. In physics or chemistry, units such as kilograms (kg), grams (g) can be used to measure the mass of a substance. Volume is the amount of 3-dimensional space occupied by an object. Units such as liters (L), milliliters (ml) can be used to measure the volume of a substance. Density is defined as the ratio of the mass to the volume of the object, as the formula below is showing: Density = mass/volume or D = m/v Physical properties are properties used to describe and identify a substance. Other than the physical properties of the substance, the measurements and mass can be used to identify the substance as well. In the cube section of this lab, the side length and mass of the cubical solid will be measured; in the cylinder section of this lab, the diameter, height and mass of the metal cylinder will be measured; in the calcium carbonate chips section, the mass of the chips, the initial volume of water, and the volume of water plus chips will be measured; in the liquid section, the mass of the graduated cylinder and the mass of cylinder plus water will be measured. Several formulas will be used in this lab in order to find the density of the different substances: Volume of a cube = length * width * height V = L * W * H Volume of a cylinder = (π * D2) / 4 * h or πr2h Percent error is a measure of how inaccurate a measurement is. Calculating the percent error is important because the percent error enables whether the experiment was successful or not.

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