I know PV = nRT, but what exactly is happening that explains this relation?
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Temperature is BASICALLY the measurement of particle movement. When a fluid is compressed – there are MORE particles in any given area – and thus more particle movement in the area – and thus a higher temperature of the area.
The way I look at it which I think is correct is that temperature is a measure of how often molecules in a substance collide with other molecules in that substance and whatever container that substance might be contained in. You can raise the temperature by somehow generating heat energy within a substance, for example by pointing light at it, or by raising the pressure which will cause molecules to hit each other more often
It doesn’t. It’s the other way around. Pressure increases with temperature. Heating the substance more causes the molecules to impact the walls harder and more often; this is a higher pressure.
Pressure hikes causing temperature happens for a different reason, and is significantly more complicated. In *this* equation, any increase in pressure must be caused by an increase in one of the other factors, not the other way around.
There’s two ways to think about it. For both you need to know that temperature is a measure of average kinetic energy of the particles in a substance.
If you think of pressure as N/m^2 , a force acting on an area. Since higher temperature means the particles are moving faster, that mean when they hit something like the edge of a container, they hit it harder because they are moving faster. Thus a larger force is exerted on the surface area of the container.
If you think of pressure as J/m^3 , an amount of energy per volume, then my increasing the temperature increases pressure because you are increasing the emount of energy in the system.
Imagine a box with bunch of molecules inside. The molecules aren’t at absolute zero temperature, so they’re moving around inside the box, occasionally hitting the box wall. The molecules are exerting force against the wall. You could say, on average, the wall is feeling the force divided by area of the box, something something Newtons per square meter, also known as Pascal. If you increase the temperature, the molecule impacts become more forceful, so… larger force divided by the same area as before equals more Pascals.
If you put pressure on something, you have Same matter & energy, but in less space. Particules are forced to collide or come closer together with increases the spin/vibration which is what temperature is. Less energy per space means getting colder, so more energy per space means getting hotter
When you increase the temperature, you’re giving particles more kinetic energy – they go faster. That means they hit the walls of the container more often and harder, resulting in an increase in pressure.
In fact you can think of pressure and temperature as measuring the same thing but in different units. Pressure measures the energy per unit volume, while temperature measures the energy per particle. They increase at the same time because when you increase energy, you increase energy.
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