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gas laws
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Boyle's law
How to use the ideal gas law
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Boyle's law
Boyle's law Demonstration of Boyle's law showing that for a given mass, at constant temperature, the pressure times the volume is a constant.

gas laws

physics
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Written by
Erik Gregersen
Erik Gregersen is a senior editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica, specializing in the physical sciences and technology. Before joining Britannica in 2007, he worked at the University of Chicago Press on the...
Erik Gregersen
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William Prout

gas laws, laws that relate the pressure, volume, and temperature of a gas. Boyle’s law—named for Robert Boyle—states that, at constant temperature, the pressure P of a gas varies inversely with its volume V, or PV = k, where k is a constant. Charles’s law—named for J.-A.-C. Charles (1746–1823)—states that, at constant pressure, the volume V of a gas is directly proportional to its absolute (Kelvin) temperature T, or V/T = k. These two laws can be combined to form the ideal gas law, a single generalization of the behaviour of gases known as an equation of state, PV = nRT, where n is the number of gram-moles of a gas and R is called the universal gas constant. Though this law describes the behaviour of an ideal gas, it closely approximates the behaviour of real gases. See also Joseph Gay-Lussac.

Erik Gregersen