Boyle's Law

What is it?

A law that shows the relationship between pressure and volume of a gas.

Tell Me More!

This is the Boyle's Law:

P1V1=P2V2=Constant

Or

P*V=Constant

Where temperature is kept constant

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Don't get confused by this!

(If the temperature remains constant)

This basicaly states an inverse relationship between pressure and volume:

If pressure increases, volume decreases;

If pressure decreases, volume increases

Why? (Increasing the Pressure)

Remember how gases are compressible? In some ways, gases are like sponges. If we have a piston, we could increase the pressure, compressing the gas more, hence reducing the volume.

Why? (Decreasing the Volume) Imagine dribbling a basketball - the ball is bouncing off the time at a relatively low rate if your hand is near your waist. What if you moved your hand closer to the ground, near your knees? When your hand is closer to the ground, the ball bounces back up at a higher frequency.

Remember the particle theory?

Replace basketballs with particles and you'll get what we mean.

When we confine a bunch of particles, in this case gases, in a space, they'll naturally vibrate and move around. Since a certain amount of particles are going to collide with the walls of the container with a certain amount of force, there is going to be pressure.

Now what will happen when we shrink the container? The particles will still be moving around at the same speed (because of a constant temperature), but now it is much easier for them to hit the walls of the container, which means for any given time, there will be more particles colliding with the wall of the container. More particles means more area of the wall that is being bashed, which increases the pressure. Hence,