Talk:Ideal gas law/Draft

Some comments

1. IUPAC prescribes lowercase p for pressure.
2. Is it necessary to give all forms? In other words can't we expect the reader to know some elementary algebra? (When I went to highschool it was first grade material, student's age around 12 years)
3. Molar gas constant R in SI units: 8.314 472 J mol⁻¹K⁻¹ see: http://physics.nist.gov/cgi-bin/cuu/Value?r%7Csearch_for=R Don't you also want to give: R = N_A k_B ?
4. The word "constant" in roman: \mathrm{constant}. Same for mol, K, and atm.
5. The name of the law varies. I learned in school "law of Boyle and Gay-Lussac".
6. You give these worked-out problems, that is OK for a textbook, but for an encyclopedia?

Hope these comments are useful. --Paul Wormer 05:19, 4 October 2007 (CDT)

ideal gas and ideal gas law

Maybe we should merge the two into one article? ideal gas doesn't exist yet, so no real merging is necessary. What do you think? Yuval Langer 06:46, 4 October 2007 (CDT)

Gas laws developed in 1660s

We need to change this back, because only 1 law was started in 1660s. The rest were developed later. David E. Volk 02:14, 2 November 2007 (CDT)

readability

This article needs lots of work on explanations, particularly on what the formulas mean what why they're used, and more elaboration on some concepts. I think it needs some narrative work. --Robert W King 14:58, 8 January 2008 (CST)

Please explain

David Volk: Would you please explain why this equation $V=\left(nV_{\mathrm {m} }\right).$ (at fixed temperature and pressure) has a period in it? Also please explain V_m . - Milton Beychok 12:52, 4 February 2008 (CST)

Special cases

For the various special-cases, rather than writing "= constant" or giving the constant a name such as $V_{\mathrm {m} }$, how about using the proportional-to symbol? IE:

• Amonton's law: $p\propto T$ (constant V, n)
• Boyle's law: $p\propto 1/V$ (constant T, n)
• $p\propto n$ (constant V, T)
• Charles's law: $V\propto T$ (constant p, n)
• Avagadro's law: $V\propto n$ (constant p, T)

Downside: people might not know the meaning of the "$\propto$" symbol. How about in English for the benefit of the notationally phobic?

Amonton's law:	pressure	is proportional to	temperature	(constant quantity and volume).
Boyle's law:	pressure	is inversely proportional to	volume	(constant quantity and temperature).

Warren Schudy 20:23, 5 February 2008 (CST)