Question:
Your father and your little brother are confronted with the same puzzle. Your father’s garden sprayer and your brother’s water cannon both have tanks with a capacity of 5.00 L (Figure P19.34). Your father inserts a negligible amount of concentrated insecticide into his tank. They both pour in 4.00 L of water and seal up their tanks, so that they also contain air at atmospheric pressure. Next, each uses a hand-operated piston pump to inject more air, until the absolute pressure in the tank reaches 2.40 atm and it becomes too difficult to move the pump handle. Now each uses his device to spray out water—not air— until the stream becomes feeble, as it does when the pressure in the tank reaches 1.20 atm. Then he must pump it up again, spray again, and so on. In order to spray out all the water, each finds that he must pump up the tank three times. This is the puzzle: most of the water sprays out as a result of the second pumping. The first and the third pumping-up processes seem just as difficult, but result in a disappointingly small amount of water coming out. Account for this phenomenon.