Introduction
.—In nearly all the previous determinations of the ratio of the specific heats of gases, from measurements of the pressures and temperature before and after an adiabatic expansion, large expansion chambers of fror 50 to 130 litres capacity have been used. Professor Callendar first suggests the use of smaller vessels, and in 1914, Mercer (‘Proc. Phys. Soc.,’ vol. 26 p. 155) made some measurements with several gases, but at room temperature only, using volumes of about 300 and 2000 c. c. respectively. He obtained values which indicated that small vessels could be used, and that, with proper corrections, a considerable degree of accuracy might be obtained. The one other experimenter who has used a small expansion chamber, capacity about 1 litre, is M. C. Shields (‘Phys. Rev.,’ 1917), who measured this ratio for air and for hydrogen at room temperature, about 18° C., and its value for hydroger at — 190° C. The chief advantage gained by the use of large expansion chambers is that no correction, or at the most, a very small one, has to be made for any systematic error due to the size of the containing vessels, but it is clear that, in the determinations of the ratio of the specific heats of gases at low temperatures, the use of small vessels becomes a practical necessity in order that uniform and steady temperature conditions may be obtained. Owing, however, to the presence of a systematic error depending upon the dimensions of the expansion chamber, the magnitude of which had not been definitely settled by experiment, the following work was undertaken with the object of investigating the method more fully, especially with regard to it? applicability to the determination of this ratio at low temperatures.
On the measurement of the ratio of the specific heats using small volumes of gas.—The ratios of the specific heat of air and of hydrogen at atmospheric pressure and a temperatures between 20°C. and —183°C
