The Ideal Gas Law: PV = nRT
Pressure, volume and temperature in a single equation
Summary
The ideal gas law PV = nRT links three variables: pressure (P), volume (V) and temperature (T). Watch the particles in real time: see them speed up as you raise the temperature, hit the walls more often as you shrink the volume, and see how the pressure changes.
In depth
The ideal gas model treats gas molecules as point particles with no volume that do not interact with each other (apart from collisions). This simplification gives surprisingly accurate results at low pressure and high temperature. The single equation is PV = nRT, where R is the universal gas constant (8.314 J/mol·K), n the number of moles and T the absolute temperature (in kelvin). It combines three separate laws: Boyle's law (P×V constant at constant T), Charles's law (V/T constant at constant P) and Avogadro's law (equal volumes contain equal numbers of particles). The microscopic explanation comes from kinetic theory: temperature is the average kinetic energy of the molecules, and pressure comes from the momentum transferred by molecules hitting the walls.
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