Halliday, Resnick & Walker — The Kinetic Theory of Gases: Problem 40

40 A container encloses 1.5 mol of an ideal gas that has molar mass \(M_1\) and 0.50 mol of a second ideal gas that has molar mass \(M_2 = 3.0M_1\). What fraction of the total pressure on the container wall is attributable to the second gas? (The kinetic theory explanation of pressure leads to the experimentally discovered law of partial pressures for a mixture of gases that do not react chemically: The total pressure exerted by the mixture is equal to the sum of the pressures that the several gases would exert separately if each were to occupy the vessel alone. The molecule–vessel collisions of one type would not be altered by the presence of another type.)