Which laws can be combined to form the ideal gas law?
A Boyles law and Charles’s law
B Gay-Lussac’s law and Avogadro’s law
C Charles’s law, Avogadro’s law, and Boyle’s law
D Dalton’s law, Gay-Lussac’s law, and Avogadro’s law
The correct answer and explanation is:
The correct answer is C: Charles’s law, Avogadro’s law, and Boyle’s law.
The ideal gas law is a combination of the relationships described by Boyle’s law, Charles’s law, and Avogadro’s law. Each of these laws describes how a gas behaves under specific conditions:
- Boyle’s Law states that, at a constant temperature, the pressure of a gas is inversely proportional to its volume. This relationship can be expressed as P∝1VP \propto \frac{1}{V}, where PP is the pressure and VV is the volume of the gas. When the temperature and the amount of gas are held constant, a decrease in volume leads to an increase in pressure and vice versa.
- Charles’s Law describes how the volume of a gas is directly proportional to its absolute temperature, provided the pressure and amount of gas are constant. It is mathematically represented as V∝TV \propto T, where VV is volume and TT is the temperature. This means that if the temperature increases, the gas expands (its volume increases), and if the temperature decreases, the gas contracts.
- Avogadro’s Law establishes the relationship between the volume of a gas and the number of gas molecules (or moles) at constant temperature and pressure. It states that the volume of a gas is directly proportional to the number of moles of gas, expressed as V∝nV \propto n, where VV is volume and nn is the number of moles of gas.
When combined, these three laws give the ideal gas law equation: PV=nRTPV = nRT
where:
- PP is the pressure,
- VV is the volume,
- nn is the number of moles of gas,
- RR is the ideal gas constant, and
- TT is the temperature in Kelvin.
The ideal gas law is a general equation that can be used to predict the behavior of gases under various conditions, assuming ideal behavior (i.e., no interactions between gas molecules and occupying negligible volume).