27: The Kinetic Theory of Gases
- Page ID
- 11823
- 27.1: The Average Translational Kinetic Energy of a Gas
- The gas laws were derived from empirical observations. Connecting them to fundamental properties of the gas particles is subject of great interest. The Kinetic Molecular Theory is one such approach. In its modern form, the Kinetic Molecular Theory of gasses is based on five basic postulates.
- 27.3: The Distribution of Molecular Speeds is Given by the Maxwell-Boltzmann Distribution
- The Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution is used to determine how many molecules are moving between velocities.
- 27.5: The Maxwell-Boltzmann Distribution Has Been Verified Experimentally
- The Maxwell-Boltzman distruction distribution has been verified experimentally by a device called a velocity selector, which is essentially a series of spinning wheels with a hole through which the gas is effused. This ensures that only gas particles with a certain velocity will pass through all the holes as the wheels are spun at various rates. Thus it is possible to count the number of particles with various velocities and show that, indeed they do satisfy the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution.
- 27.6: Mean Free Path
- The mean free path is the distance a particle will travel, on average, before experiencing a collision event. This is defined as the product of the speed of a particle and the time between collisions.