A new determination of the gas constant by an acoustical method

A new determination of the gas constant has been made using a method in which the velocity of sound in argon was measured by means of an acoustic inteferometer operated at a temperature close to 273.16 K. Ninety-eight independent velocity measurements were made over a pressure range from 30 to 200 kPa to enable the velocity at zero pressure to be deduced by extrapolation. By using this experimental value, a new value for the gas constant of 8315.73 + 0.17 J K _1kmol_1 was deduced. This is higher than the old value for R, obtained from measurements of the density oi oxygen, by 159 p.p.m. (parts/106).