Introduction: 

The purpose of these assignments was two-fold.  First, they were designed to help us become more familiar with the graphing, mathematical and statistical functions of Microsoft Excel.  Second, they were designed to introduce us to the primary research data of two historical chemists, and to give us a chance to analyze said data.  The two scientists in question were Svante Arrhenius and Robert Boyle. 

For Arrhenius, we were instructed to download Arrhenius kinetics data from Carmen Giunta's Lemoyne College website (http://web.lemoyne.edu/~giunta).  This data was taken from Arrhenius's "On the Reaction Velocity of the Inversion of Cane Sugar by Acids" (Giunta provides a link to a translation, which I will also provide here).  For Boyle, we were instructed to download Boyle's verification data, data produced by Boyle and his assistant, when experimenting to try and verify Boyle's pressure/volume equation (also from Giunta's website).  This data was taken from Boyle's A Defence of the Doctrine Affecting the Spring and Weight of the Air (Giunta provides a link to a University of Manitoba webpage for an excerpt, which I will also provide here). 

We then were required to manipulate the data using Microsoft Excel (the data downloaded in an Excel spreadsheet).  This data then had to be graphed, with trendlines and trendline analysis.  Finally, we were to examine the results of our data analyses and graphing, and come to some conclusions about the significance of what we were looking at.  For my conclusions, please follow the links to my individual analyses, below.

Arrhenius Kinetics Analysis

Boyle's Law Verification