Kinetic Theory of Temperature and Pressure
Describe the pressure a gas exerts on its container in terms of atomic motion within that gas.
- Atoms in a gas collide with and exert forces on other atoms in the gas and with the container in which the gas is contained.
- Collisions involving pairs of atoms or an atom and a fixed object can be described and analyzed using conservation of momentum principles.
- The pressure exerted by a gas on a surface is the ratio of the sum of the magnitude of the perpendicular components of the forces exerted by the gas's atoms on the surface to the area of the surface. Relevant equation:
- Pressure exists throughout the gas itself, not just at the boundary between the gas and the container.
Describe the temperature of a system in terms of the atomic motion within that system.
- The temperature of a system is characterized by the average kinetic energy of the atoms within that system.
- The Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution provides a graphical representation of the energies and speeds of atoms at a given temperature.
- The root-mean-square speed corresponding to the average kinetic energy for an ideal gas is related to the temperature of the gas by:
AP Physics 2 only expects students to perform qualitative and quantitative analysis of collisions in one and two dimensions. Students are not expected to know the functional form of the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution but are expected to be familiar with how features of the distribution are related to the temperature of the gas.