The Gas Laws

Gas laws describe how the physical properties of a gas -- pressure, volume, temperature and amount -- relate to one another, and they were arrived at almost entirely by careful experimental study of these properties. Before taking up the individual laws, it helps to be precise about what "pressure" means and how it is measured.

Pressure is defined as force divided by the area over which that force acts:

$\text{Pressure}=\frac{\text{Force}}{\text{Area}}=\frac{N\ \text{or}\ kg\,m\,s^{-2}}{m^2}$ …