A barometer tube reads 76 cm of mercury, It the tube is gradually inclined at an angle of 60° with vertical, keeping the open end immersed in the mercury reservoir, what is the length of the mercury column?

1 Answer
P dilip_k
Apr 12, 2018

Given rhat a barometer tube reads 76 cm of mercury, when the tube is gradually inclined at an angle of 60° with vertical, keeping the open end immersed in the mercury reservoir, the angle of incineration with the horizontal will be #30^@# and vertical will remain same as #76cm# as vertical height of mercury column represents the atmospheric pressure. If the length of mercury column be #L# cm in inclined condition then

#76/L=sin30^@=1/2#

Hence #L=152cm#. It is possible if the barometer tube is long enough to accommodate this elongation of the length of mercury column. .

But in actual practice the length of barometer tube is restricted to 100cm. So at the given inclination of tube this elongation will also be restricted to 100cm.

Related questions
Impact of this question
3667 views around the world
You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License