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Kinetic theory of Gas
The Kinetic Theory of Gas is a model to explain the behavior of gases. There are four part to the theory:
- Gas particles do not interact with each other {i.e. they have no intermolecular forces (IMF)}
- A gas consists of molecules moving in constant straight line motion until they hit another molecule or the wall of the container. The average of the kinetic energy in all the molecules is the temperature.
- All collisions between gas molecules (and wall of container) are perfectly elastic. Perfectly elastic means that all the energy in the system before collision exists after collision, only re-distributed differently. An analogy playing pool. A perfect elastic collision is when the cue ball hits the "still" object ball and after collision, the cue ball is "still" and the object ball moves away with the exact amount of kinetic energy that the cue ball had before the collision.
- The actual volume of particle is significantly smaller than the volume of the gas (i.e. volume of the gas container). This allows us to assume that all gases (no matter the actual size) occupy the same volume if you have the same number of gas particles (i.e. same number of moles). Therefore, the volume of a gas is mostly empty space and actual gas particle are extremely far away from each other.
Using this theory and the gas parameters (GasParameters), you can calculate Gas Law Problems (GasLaws).