Boyle's law
Boyle's law states that, for a fixed amount of gas at constant temperature, pressure varies inversely with volume. Its equation is PV = constant.
Ideal gas law: The equation of state PV = nRT relates pressure, volume, amount, and temperature for an ideal gas. Boyle's law follows from this broader relation when gas amount and temperature remain fixed.
Robert Boyle: Robert Boyle was a seventeenth-century natural philosopher whose experimental work helped establish modern chemistry and physics. He reported the pressure–volume relationship from air-pump experiments.
Boyle's law in breathing: Boyle's law describes how changes in lung volume accompany pressure changes during ordinary breathing. Expanding the thoracic cavity lowers lung pressure and draws air inward.
Charles's law: Charles's law states that a fixed amount of gas at constant pressure has volume proportional to absolute temperature. Unlike Boyle's law, it varies temperature and volume while holding pressure fixed.
Thermodynamics: Thermodynamics studies heat, work, temperature, and energy transformations in macroscopic systems. Boyle's law is an empirical gas relation used within thermodynamic descriptions.
Gas pressure: Gas pressure is force per unit area, produced microscopically by particles transferring momentum to surfaces. Compressing a gas increases collision frequency and pressure when temperature is held constant.
Edme Mariotte: Edme Mariotte was a French physicist and priest who independently described the inverse relation between gas pressure and volume. His independent account led the relationship to be called Mariotte's law in some countries.
Syringe: A syringe is a tube-and-plunger device used to draw in or expel fluids and gases. Pulling its plunger increases chamber volume and lowers pressure, drawing fluid or gas inward.
Gay-Lussac's law: Gay-Lussac's law states that a fixed amount of gas at constant volume has pressure proportional to absolute temperature. It holds volume fixed rather than temperature, isolating a different gas relationship.
Gas laws: Gas laws describe quantitative relationships among pressure, volume, temperature, and amount of gas. Boyle's law became one member of the set of empirical relations summarized by the ideal gas law.