Chemistry (SC03B01)
The Properties and Laws of Gases
Have you ever wondered why bread rises? Why your tires air pressure changes or even
how you can even breathe? If you do, then learning about the properties and laws of gases is the
best option for you. Some of the earliest scientific investigations concerning matter were
performed by these very scientists trying to understand the physical and chemical properties of
these gases Gases have very unique properties and many talented scientists have developed laws
to describe the relationships between them. It has been argued that gas laws and properties are very
simple and unimportant, which is possibly true to some scientists or chemists. However, it is vitally
important to signify the importance because these properties and laws of gases are very important
to not only us but the whole world. This essay will discuss the significance of all three gas
properties and their three empirical gas laws and conclude with both how these gases effect our
daily lives and the significance of them.
First and foremost, the properties of gases are an important factor to gases as a whole.
Gases are all around you and have unique properties and one of these properties is pressure.
Molecules of gases, which are always in constant motion, bounce off the walls of their container
or whatever volume is available to them, which causes a buildup of kinetic energy and an increase
of molecules bouncing off the walls of the container causing pressure to occur. Pressure is
measured by this force divided by the surface area of the gas or the area over which force is exerted.
This gas pressure or air pressure are collisions of gas molecules that are pulled towards earth
surface, and which they collide with each other and the surface of the earth to create atmospheric
pressure of about 1,034 g. The first step of how scientists first came to understand pressure or the
concept of gases as a whole, was the discovery of atmospheric pressure which played a crucial role
in the development of the chemistry of gases. In the early 17th century, Italian
physicist/mathematician, Evangelista Torricelli invented the barometer to measure atmospheric
pressure and proved that gases have matter. The common belief was that gases (or “air”) had no
matter at all was and this was overturned by Torricelli’s invention of the barometer. We can
involve pressure in our everyday lives by a vacuum cleaner. When a vacuum cleaner is turned, the
vacuum sucks air from inside the cleaner and the pressure becomes lower than the surrounding
atmosphere which causes the atmospheric (surrounding) pressure to have more force causing the
air and dirt/dust to be force back inside the vacuum cleaner.
Second, is the property of temperature which also has a huge impact on any gas. The
temperature of a gas is something that we may be able to determine with our senses, to see if a gas
is hot or cold but to determine temperature quantitively, using numbers, we ...
