In article , "Joseph Meehan" wrote:
mm wrote:
On Fri, 9 Feb 2007 15:21:15 -0500, "Zephyr" Someguy@an email
address.com wrote:

A molecule of carbon monoxide weighs 28. C=12 and 0=16.

70%+ (78?)of the air is nitrogen and a molecule of that weighs 28.
N=114x2.

So they weight the same.


It is weight per unit of volume at the ambient temperature that is
important.

Well, yes, but a rule of thumb for gases is that density at standard
temperature and pressure is approximately proportional to molecular weight.

Taking air to be a mixture of 78% N2 (molecular weight 28), 21% O2 (32), and
1% Ar (18), then CO, with a molecular weight of 28, would be expected on that
basis to have a density 0.97 that of air.

The actual figure is 0.969 (1.25 g/l for CO vs 1.29 for air).

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again.