A vessel contains N₂ gas at temperature T. If the temperature is raised such that the gas molecules begin to dissociate into individual N atoms at very high T, the degrees of freedom of the system effectively:

Answer: Decreases from 5 to 3 per resulting particle, since atoms only have translational degrees of freedom.

• A Increases from 5 to 6, since atoms mainly have translational freedom but more molecules exist in routine practice
• B Decreases from 5 to 3 per resulting particle, since atoms only have translational degrees of freedom
• C Stays at 5 overall in most cases under typical conditions according to standard textbooks in general practice
• D Becomes 7 as frequently described in most textbook accounts during normal conditions as generally observed