Reading The Martian and thinking about things like depressurisation – why does air from a higher concentration feel the need to rush through a small leak with enough force to rip or blow things apart instead of staying put?
What calls it from the vacuum for it to be so obsessed in doing so?
In: Planetary Science
From an engineering standpoint:
Why gas fills containers:
Gases fill containers. Meaning, any one molecule (of potentially trillions) has an equal chance of being in any position in the system. The system is a space with a boundary. Like a box, a balloon, your lungs
This is due to that gravity and intermolecular interactions are super tiny in “normal” gases (i am talking about air. They have so much momentum that they just spread out everywhere
Since they are so light, and airy (theres a pun back), gravity has very little effect on them (look up gravitation equations for the math)
So what is a vacuum:
A vacuum is simply a space with little to no gas molecules.
Pressure is force divided by area. The same force you get from pushing on something.
If you crash into your bedroom door, you put force on it. Gas molecules do the same. So pressure measures how much force a bunch of gas molecules are hitting the container with
Vacuum= no pressure = no force = no momentum = no molecules
Maybe i did a eli15 but i hope this helps!
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