So I’m aware it’s because of pressure difference, but why does that matter? Why does the pressure try to equal out immediately and not just slowly wait as things move into it like they would in ambient pressure?
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Pressure in a gas is the force of the molecules bouncing around and hitting the sides of the container.
Logically, a higher pressure means more molecules or faster bouncing around, so if the container suddenly expanded then a higher pressure would more quickly expand with it to fill the new empty space.
Even if the individual molecules aren’t any faster, because more of them are bouncing around, more of them move into the new space, and it fills faster.
The actual physical speed that the individual molecules expand into the new space depends on their original speed, and so their temperature. At room temperature, this is around 300 or 400 meters per second. Almost no matter the pressure, at this temperature the gas will spread out at this speed on average.
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