Which condition did you change?
Labs / Chemistry
Molecular Speeds
Every particle in a gas moves at its own speed, and together they form a lopsided bell curve. Drag up and down over the box to heat or cool the gas, swap in a heavier or lighter molecule, and watch the histogram fill in the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution beside it.
Labs / Chemistry / Molecular Speeds
Molecular Speeds
Every particle in a gas moves at its own speed, and together they form a lopsided bell curve. Drag up and down over the box to heat or cool the gas, swap in a heavier or lighter molecule, and watch the histogram fill in the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution beside it.
Why it matters
Why explore this?
Chemistry connects events too small to see with changes we can measure. This model helps you link particles, energy, and conditions to an observable result.
Explore
Try the model
vₚ —v̄ —v_rms —
Investigate
Questions to test
Predict first, try it in the model, then use what you observe to answer.
What to try
- Heat the gas up. Does the whole curve just shift right, or does it flatten and spread out too?
- Why is the peak (most-probable speed) always to the left of the average and rms speeds — never in the middle?
- Switch from CO₂ to H₂ at the same temperature. Why do the lightest molecules race so much faster?
- What temperature and molar mass make hydrogen fast enough to escape a planet's gravity?
- Cool the gas toward 100 K. What happens to the tail of very fast particles that drive evaporation and reaction rates?
Explain
Make sense of what happened
Describe what happened at the particle or energy level, then connect it to the result you saw. A strong explanation names both the cause and the evidence.
Check
Before you leave
What happened to the particles or energy?
What observation supports your explanation?
If you can answer all three using evidence from the model, you understand the main idea. If not, return to Explore and change one setting at a time.