The Ideal Gas Law is the simplest rule for relating basic properties of gases: pressure, volume, temperature and quantity.
Some of the earliest work, in what we consider to be Modern Chemistry, was work with gases. Back then, they didn’t have digital balances, and working with gases held the advantage that the scientists could measure volumes, at least to the extent of noticing that one thing was present in a volume twice that of something else.
The early emphasis on Gas Laws held another advantage–it points to some basic rules of math that are valuable to know:
- y=kx (Direct Proportionality)
- xy = k (Inverse Proportionality)
The other form used to show Inverse Proportionality:
Boyle’s Law
Charles’ Law
Avogadro’s Law
Rob Sterling 