How would a graph of pressure versus volume appear for a given quantity of gas?

1 Answer
Truong-Son N.
Nov 19, 2016

Boyle's Law was:

#PV = "const"#

so if one plots #P# vs. #V#, it would have to be like this:

#P = "const" * 1/V#

http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/

You can see that it resembles #f(x) = 1/x#:

graph{1/x [-10,-10, -5, 5]}

If #P# was truly able to reach #0#, it would imply that #V -> oo#. Clearly, we cannot have an infinitely-large container, and thus, volume can never truly be infinite.

Similarly, it is impossible to have a volume of #0#, because we would not have a system. It would also imply an infinite pressure, which is also impossible; pressure has been measurable for as long as we've had mercury manometers.

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