Video Transcript
The boxes below represent a
chemical reaction between the red and the blue particles. In which box will the number of
collisions be greatest?
Chemical reactions occur when
particles successfully collide with one another. But not every collision which
occurs between particles is successful. This means that there will be times
where the particles collide but do not react with one another. If we could somehow increase the
number of collisions which occur between the particles in a sample, we would
increase the chance of a successful collision. In other words, increasing the
number of collisions increases the number of reactions which occur between
particles.
To answer this question, we need to
determine which box will have the greatest number of collisions between the red and
the blue particles. We can see that all of the boxes
are the same size. But they each have a different
number of red and blue particles. We might also say that each of the
boxes has a different concentration of red and blue particles, where concentration
is the measure of the amount of a substance, in this case the number of particles,
in a particular volume.
Box (D) has the least number of red
and blue particles. So of the four boxes, this box has
the lowest concentration. On the other hand, box (A) has the
greatest number of red and blue particles. So of the four boxes, this box has
the highest concentration. But how does concentration affect
the number of collisions? In box (D), the particles can move
about and will collide in a variety of different ways. Increasing the number of particles
increases the chances that two particles will collide with one another. Thus, increasing the concentration
increases the number of collisions.
Since box (A) has the highest
concentration of particles, we should expect that this box will have the greatest
number of collisions. Therefore, the box in which the
number of collisions between the red and the blue particles is the greatest is box
(A).
