What is Boyle's law?
Q: What is Boyle's law?
A: Boyle's law (also called Mariotte's law and the Boyle-Mariotte law) is a law about ideal gases which states that for a fixed amount of an ideal gas kept at a constant temperature, the pressure (P) and volume (V) are inversely proportional.
Q: How can we express Boyle's Law mathematically?
A: We can express Boyle's Law mathematically as P ∝ 1/V or PV = k, where P is the pressure of the gas, V is the volume of the gas, and k is a constant.
Q: Who discovered this law?
A: The law was found by Robert Boyle in 1662, and afterwards independently by Edme Mariotte in 1679.
Q: What does it mean when we say that P and V are inversely proportional?
A: This means that as one increases, the other decreases proportionally - so if you decrease the volume of a tank containing a certain amount of gas at a certain pressure, then due to increased collisions between particles resulting from being contained in less space, the pressure will increase.
Q: How do we use Boyle's Law to calculate changes in pressure or volume?
A: We can use Boyle's Law to calculate changes in either pressure or volume by using two equations - P1V1=k and P2V2=k - where k remains constant while either P1/V1 or P2/V2 change depending on what you're trying to calculate.
Q: Can we apply this law to real gases too?
A: No - this only applies to ideal gases since they have no intermolecular forces between them.
