In article famGd.8959$OF5.451@attbi_s52, K. James says...


Any you fellas what has had the benefit of a real education want to chime in
with the answer?

Sure, I can do that.

1) you can't ever win an argument like this with your wife.

2) even if you *do* manage to win, you still loose.

3) tell her she's right, and take her out to dinner as a prize.

Now that that's out of the way, the real answer is that
the universal gas law is really called the "ideal" universal
gas law.

"Ideal" modifying 'gas' in this case.

The law only works for "ideal gasses" which are gasses that
are made up of atoms that DO NOT INTERACT WITH EACH OTHER.

Basically an ideal gas is a collection of tiny particles that
obey a particular kinetic energy distribution, based on their
temperature.

The hotter the container is, the faster they zoom around inside,
and bump into the walls of the container.

The moment they do stuff like condense or stick together to
form a liquid, the law no longer works because they're either
not an 'ideal' gas, or they're no longer a gas, but rather
a liquid. Even if they start to interact a little bit, you
need to make a correction for the law.

PV=nkT is the math on this.

P is pressure - how much the gage reads on the container. (absolute)

V is volume of the box

n is the number of atoms of the gas you put inside the box

k is a proportionality constant, 'boltzman's constant' named for him

T is the temperature inside the box, again in absolute units (K)

All things being equal, if V goes down, then T goes up. As LONG as
it's an ideal *gas*.

Jim


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