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.

Related questions
See all questions in Boyle's Law
Impact of this question
2727 views around the world
You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License