The Formula for Boyles Law

The Formula for Boyle's Law Boyles law is a special case of the ideal gas law. This law applies only to ideal gases held at a constant temperature, allowing only the volume and pressure to change. Boyles Law Formula Boyles law is expressed as:PiVi PfVfwherePi initial pressureVi initial volumePf final pressureVf final volume Because temperature and amount of gas dont change, these terms dont appear in the equation.What Boyles law means is that the volume of a mass of gas is inversely proportional to its pressure. This linear relationship between pressure and volume means doubling the volume of a given mass of gas decreases its pressure by half. It is important to remember the units for initial and final conditions are the same. Do not start with pounds and cubic inches for initial pressure and volume units and expect to find pascals and liters without converting the units first. There are two other common ways to express the formula for Boyles law. According to this law, at a constant temperature, the product of pressure and volume is a constant: PV c or P ∠ 1/V Boyles Law Example Problem A 1 L volume of a gas is at a pressure of 20 atm. A valve allows the gas to flow into a 12 L container, connecting the two containers. What is the final pressure of this gas? A good place to start this problem is to write out the formula for Boyles law and identify which variables you know and which remain to be found. The formula is: P1V1 P2V2 You know: Initial pressure P1 20 atmInitial volume V1 1 Lfinal volume V2 1 L 12 L 13 Lfinal pressure P2 variable to find P1V1 P2V2 Dividing both sides of the equation by V2 gives you: P1V1 / V2 P2 Filling in the numbers: (20 atm)(1 L)/(13 L) final pressure final pressure 1.54 atm (not the correct number of significant figures, just so you know) If youre still confused, you may wish to review another worked Boyles Law problem. Interesting Boyles Law Facts Boyles law was the first physical law written as an equation that described the dependence of two variables. Before this, one variable was all you got.Boyles law is also known as the Boyle-Mariotte law or Mariottes law. Anglo-Irish Boyle published his law in 1662, but French physicist Edme Mariotte came up with the same relation independently in 1679.Although Boyles law describes the behavior of an ideal gas, it can be applied to real gases at normal temperature and low (ordinary) pressure. As temperature and pressure increase, gases start to deviate from any variation of the ideal gas law. Boyles Law and Other Gas Laws Boyles law is not the only special case of the ideal gas law. Two other common laws are  Charles law  (constant pressure) and Gay-Lussacs  law  (constant volume).