Professional Documents
Culture Documents
So we could say that Charles' Law describes how hot air balloons get
light enough to lift off, and why a temperature inversion prevents
convection currents in the atmosphere, and how a sample of gas can
work as an absolute thermometer.
Charles' law states that the volume of a gas equals a constant value multiplied by its
temperature as measured on the Kelvin scale (zero Kelvin corresponds to -273.15
degrees Celsius).
Amount of space a gas occupies depends purely on the motion of the gas molecules.
Under typical conditions, gas molecules are very far from their neighbours, and they
are so small that their own bulk is negligible. They push outward on flasks or
pistons or balloons simply by bouncing off those surfaces at high speed. Inside a
helium balloon, about 1024 helium atoms smack into each square centimeter of
rubber every second, at speeds of about a mile per second.
Both the speed and frequency with which the gas molecules ricochet off container
walls depend on the temperature, which is why hotter gases occupy larger volumes
Specifically, if we double the Kelvin temperature of a rigidly contained gas sample,
the number of collisions per unit area per second increases by the square root of 2,
and on average the momentum of those collisions increases by the square root of 2.
So the net effect is that volume doubles if the container enlarges to keep the pressure
from rising.