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Kinetic theory of gases. The temperature of the ideal gas is proportional to the average kinetic energy of its particles. The size of helium atoms relative to their spacing is shown to scale under 1,950 atmospheres of pressure. The atoms have an average speed relative to their size slowed down here two trillion fold from that at room temperature.
According to the assumptions of the kinetic theory of ideal gases, one can consider that there are no intermolecular attractions between the molecules, or atoms, of an ideal gas. In other words, its potential energy is zero. Hence, all the energy possessed by the gas is the kinetic energy of the molecules, or atoms, of the gas.
Ludwig Boltzmann. Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann (/ ˈbɒltsmən /, [2] US also / ˈboʊl -, ˈbɔːl -/, [2][3] Austrian German: [ˈluːdvɪɡ ˈbɔltsman]; 20 February 1844 – 5 September 1906) was an Austrian physicist and philosopher. His greatest achievements were the development of statistical mechanics, and the statistical explanation of the ...
Equipartition theorem. Thermal motion of an α-helical peptide. The jittery motion is random and complex, and the energy of any particular atom can fluctuate wildly. Nevertheless, the equipartition theorem allows the average kinetic energy of each atom to be computed, as well as the average potential energies of many vibrational modes.
The van der Waals equation, named for its originator, the Dutch physicist Johannes Diderik van der Waals, is an equation of state that extends the ideal gas law to include the non-zero size of gas molecules and the interactions between them (both of which depend on the specific substance). As a result the equation is able to model the liquid ...
Mean free path. Average distance travelled by a moving particle between impacts with other particles. In physics, mean free path is the average distance over which a moving particle (such as an atom, a molecule, or a photon) travels before substantially changing its direction or energy (or, in a specific context, other properties), typically as ...
The kinetic theory of gases applies to the classical ideal gas, which is an idealization of real gases. In real gases, there are various effects (e.g., van der Waals interactions , vortical flow, relativistic speed limits, and quantum exchange interactions ) that can make their speed distribution different from the Maxwell–Boltzmann form.
Perhaps the greatest success of the kinetic theory of gases, as it came to be called, was the discovery that for gases, the temperature as measured on the Kelvin (absolute) temperature scale is directly proportional to the average kinetic energy of the gas molecules. Graham's law for diffusion could thus be understood as a consequence of the ...