Gas law lab
Move one thing, hold two still, and watch the fourth answer.
Scientific learning path
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The particle count is illustrative, not the number of molecules — a mole is far too many to draw. Their speed tracks the temperature.
Description of this simulation
Boyle's law: At a fixed temperature and amount, pressure is inversely proportional to volume. The gas is at 100 kilopascals, 22.71 litres, 1 mole and 273.2 kelvin, which is 0 degrees Celsius. Moving the volume changes the pressure; the other two are held still.
PV = nRT
At a fixed temperature and amount, pressure is inversely proportional to volume.
The gas right now
- Pressure
- 100 kPa
- Volume
- 22.7 L
- Amount· Held still
- 1 mol
- Temperature· Held still
- 273.2 K
- In Celsius
- 0 °C
Temperature here is absolute, in kelvin. Halving a Celsius reading does not halve the volume: 100 °C to 50 °C is 373 K to 323 K, a fall of thirteen per cent, not fifty.
The relationship
Every point on this curve is the same calculation as the reading above it.
What "ideal" leaves out
An ideal gas has particles of no size that do not attract each other. Real gases follow this closely at everyday pressures and drift from it when cold or squeezed hard — which is exactly when they condense, something an ideal gas can never do.
What this model shows — and what it simplifies
Educational ModelEvery reading comes from PV = nRT solved for the unknown, never from a proportion written to look like the law.
Where do we see this in real life?
A bicycle pump warms as you compress the air, an aerosol can warns against heating, and a bag of crisps swells on a mountain pass. All three are this one equation.