i’ve been searching for this in terms i can understand and can’t seem to wrap my head around them. any help greatly appreciated. also if its any help, im in a general chemistry course
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The kinetic theory of gases, or the ideal gas laws, or the perfect gas laws, run like this (your ordering might be different):
1. the particles in a gas are in constant, random motion
* Simple enough: the particles don’t hang around in any particular place and their motions are random, and most importantly in straight lines.
2. the combined volume of the particles is negligible
* Model the particles as points with no volume; the gas is mostly empty space anyway, and the model is a lot simpler if you keep it that way.
3. the particles exert no attractive forces on one another
* No molecule attracts or repels any other molecule. As a corollary, the same is true for the container.
4. any collisions between the particles are completely elastic
* Normally, when an object strikes something, some energy is dispersed internally, some is lost as heat, etc. The kinetic theory of gases says to treat all energy as still existing and still being kinetic energy.
5. the average kinetic energy of the particles is only proportional to the temperature in kelvins.
* Dealing with average energies is a lot mathematically simpler than wondering what particles might be moving slower or faster.
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