Boyle’sLaw:Verification
Boyle's Equation
Robert Boyle
If the temperature of a gas isconstant, as the pressure on the gas increases the volume willdecrease. The inverse is also true. If thepressure on the gas decreases then the volume will increase. It wasRobertBoyle, in 1662, who was first to fully investigated the pressure-volumerelationshipof gases. Boyle used a tube containing a gas and mercury. When hechanged theamount of mercury in the tube he changed the pressure, which in turnchangedthe amount of space occupied by the gas. When the amount of mercury wasdoubled, the volume decreased by half.
RobertBoyle’s observations are summed up in Boyle’s law, which states thatfor agiven mass of gas at constant temperature, the volume of a gas variesinverselywith pressure. Because of the inverse relationship, the product of thetwoquantities, pressure and volume, is constant. When given any two setsofpressure and volume, at a given temperature, the product will be theconstant.
When you look at the first set of data plotted onthe graphyou notice the curve of the line indicating the inverse relationshipbetweenpressure and volume. As the pressure was decreasing the volume wasincreasing.When you take any point on the curve and multiply the pressure value bythevolume value the product equals the constant. This graph is consistentwithBoyle’s law.
The secondgraph is showing the relationship between 1/pressure and volume. Whenthe datais plotted in this format the slope of the line is linear. This is alsoconsistent with Boyle’s law. If there is an inverse relationshipbetween twovariables, plotting the inverse of one variable will generate astraight line.
PlottingBoyle’s data onto a graph allows us to better see the relationshipbetweenpressure and volume and what ultimately led to Boyle’s law.
