– I am not wrapping my head around partial pressure – according to wikipedia:
“the notional [pressure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure) of that constituent gas if it alone occupied the entire [volume](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume) of the original mixture at the same [temperature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature)”
does it mean the pressure of the existing quantity of constituent gas if all other gases were removed from the given volume? Not the pressure if you were to fill that space to capacity with the gas?
In: Physics
Yes to your first answer, no to the second. Imagine a 100 foot tall
open-topped tank filled 2/3 with rocks and 1/3 with water (by volume).
The water pressure at the bottom of the tank, under 100′ of water and rocks,
would be 3 atmospheres. Now remove the rocks.
The water pressure at the bottom, under 33′ of only water would be 1 atmosphere.
The water is the “constituent gas” and the rocks are the “other gases”.
Same pattern as a sealed tank of air, if a relative of Maxwell’s daemon
could remove all gasses except oxygen from the tank, the partial
pressure of the remaining O2 would be around 20% of the original pressure.
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