hey it's professor Dave, let's talk about ideal gases. let's recall our definition of a gas as the phase of matter where atoms of a substance are in motion and fill their container. if we make a couple simplifying assumptions about gases we can make some easy predictions. those are that one, particles of a gas are dimensionless points in random motion and the identity of the gas is irrelevant could be anything.
and two that the particles don't interact apart from elastic collisions bouncing off one another like balls on a pool table. these things aren't completely true but they make the math easy and surprisingly accurate so these kinds of samples are called ideal gases when examining an ideal gas we want to be able to discuss four variables one, pressure. this is the force the gas is exerting on its container or rather how much the particles are hitting the sides.
two, this is the amount of heat energy available to be transferred into kinetic energy of motion. the higher the temperature the faster the particles move. three, volume. how big is the container? and four, moles.
how many particles are there in the container? so how many particles, how big is the container, how fast are the particles moving, and how often do they hit the sides? as it turns out these variables depend on one another in interesting ways that have been formulated into laws. let's look at a piston while keeping the moles and temperature the same, in other words the same number particles moving at the same speed if we compress the volume the pressure must go up the particles will be hitting the sides more often because there is less distance to travel to hit a side.
that means that pressure and volume are inversely proportional. if one goes down the other goes up. this is expressed in Boyle's law P1V1 equals p2v2.
if we double one variable we have to cut the other one in half in order to keep this equation valid. volume and temperature are also related. if we have gas in a balloon and we heat it up the particles will move more quickly. in order to keep pressure constant or hit the sides with the same frequency the volume will have to expand. this means that volume and temperature are directly proportional.
if one doubles the other must double this is expressed in Charles law. when we do calculations with temperature we must always use an absolute temperature scale called the Kelvin scale. one degree Kelvin is the same magnitude as one degree Celsius but zero Kelvin is absolute zero, the lowest temperature possible, a complete absence of heat energy.
this helps us avoid weird mathematical issues that would arise if we were doing a calculation involving a negative or zero temperature to get Kelvin from Celsius just add 273, to go the other way subtract. the combined gas law is like a combination of Boyles and Charles. Avogadro's law says that equal volumes of gases at the same temperature and pressure contain the same number of molecules, specifically that one mole of ideal gas occupies 22.4 liters at standard temperature and pressure regardless of the identity of the gas. lastly all the variables correlate in one equation called the ideal gas law.
this also contains the gas constant R which makes these calculations intelligible in our man-made units. there are a number of values for R depending on the units we will predominantly use this one. this equation is useful when we aren't looking at a change but just to know the values of all four variables at once. like in this case we could know the pressure temperature and volume of a gas and quickly calculate how many moles of particles must be in the sample. so if you're looking at a sample of gas and you have three of the four variables you can solve for the fourth using the ideal gas law.
if you are given some initial conditions as well as some final conditions you can use one of the other laws to find the other information. just plug in what you know and solve for what you don't. let's check comprehension thanks for watching guys subscribe to my channel for more tutorials and as always feel free to email me professordavexplains at gmail.com