What does the ideal gas law allow a scientist to calculate that the other gas laws do not?

1 Answer
May 26, 2015

Quick answer: nothing.

There are four gas laws.

Boyle's Law

Volume is inversely proportional to pressure, or PV = kPV=k.

Charles' Law

Volume is directly proportional to temperature, or V/T = kVT=k

Gay-Lussac's or Amonton's Law

Pressure is directly proportional to temperature, or P/T = kPT=k

Avogadro's Law

Volume is directly proportional to the number of moles, or V/n = kVn=k

Put them all together, and you get

The Ideal Gas Law

(PV)/(nT) = kPVnT=k or PV = nkTPV=nkT

We usually replace the constant kk with the universal gas constant RR and write the equation as

PV = nRTPV=nRT

antranik.org

The Ideal Gas Law is simply a combination of the other four gas laws.