Question

If a barometer were built using ethanol () instead of mercury (), would the column of ethanol be higher than, lower than, or the same as the column of mercury at 1.00 atm?

Answer 1

The column of ethanol will be higher than the column of mercury.

Step-by-step explanation:

The pressure (P) of a column of liquid can be calculated using the following expression.

P = ρ . g . h

where,

ρ: density of the liquid

g: gravity

h: height of the column

h = P / ρ . g

We can see that the height of the column is inversely proportional to the density of the liquid. The density of ethanol (0.789 g/mL) is lower than the density of mercury (13.6 g/mL). Then, under the same conditions, the column of ethanol will be higher than the column of mercury.