Question

A little boy blows air into a rubber glove and ties a knot at the end of it. He realizes that he wants the puffed-up glove to be bigger, but he's already tied a knot that he cannot untie.

According to the gas laws, what could the little boy do to increase the volume of air in the glove?

poke a hole in one of the fingers of the glove
place the glove in the sun
squeeze the fingers of the glove
place the glove in the freezer

Answer 1

squeeze the fingers of the glove because of imcrease pressure

Answer 2

Place the glove in the sun

Step-by-step explanation:

According to the ideal-gas law:

PV=nRT (1)

References:

P= Pressure

V= Volume

T=Temperature

n= Mol

R=Constant

As it is described , the amount of air inside the glove is constant, so R and n are constants and the ideal-gas formula can be re-written as follows:

V=aT/P (2)

Being "a" a constant.

We can see in (2) that the volume can be incresed directly by increasing the temperature or by lowering the pressure. So the correct answer is "place the glove in the sun" because the temperature of the air will be increased and the volume of the glove will be increased as well.

It is easy to think that by squeezing the fingers of the glove the volume is increased, but in this case the volume of the glove is decreased (because it hasn't got the volume of the fingers anymore) and the pressure is increased in consequence, making the rest of the glove swell in order to maintain the original volume.