In this experiment, a reaction of oxalic acid and permanganate was used to determine the rate law and rate constant of that reaction. The rate law is an equation that uses the concentrations, the orders of the reaction and the rate constant to calculate the rate. The reaction consisted of water and oxalic acid being added to a Pyrex tube. After a few seconds of stirring that solution, permanganate was added and a timer was used to calculate how long it would take for the solution to go from dark purple to golden yellow. The results were based off of the amount of permanganate, water and oxalic acid added. There were different amounts in each of the three experiments, but they all added up to the same total volume of solution at the end.…show more content… The reaction was timed until completion. This means that there was not a certain time at which the timer stopped. It kept going until the solution went to completion. The experiments were done three times each because of the visual indication of the solution color. This could be subjective; therefore, the trial was repeated an additional two times. The times had to fall within 10 seconds of each other. The data would be considered precise because the times recorded were close to one another, but that does not mean that the data was accurate. The results showed an average reaction time for each of the experiments. The average reaction time varied from experiment to experiment due to the amount of each solution added. The rates of the reaction increased as each experiment went on. Experiment 1 had the lowest rate of reaction, experiment 2 had a larger rate and three had the largest rate of