46 articles – 578 references  [version française]
 HAL: hal-00592765, version 1
 arXiv: 1105.2643
 Available versions: v1 (2011-05-13) v2 (2011-07-16)
 On the ideal gas law
 (2011-05-13)
 When a cylinder terminated by a piston, containing $N$ corpuscles, and with height $h$ is raised at temperature $\theta$, the force that the corpuscles exerts on the piston is, to within constant factors: $F=N\,\theta/h$. This law, called the ''ideal gas law'', is valid at any temperature (except at very low temperatures when quantum effects are significant) and for any collection of corpuscles, in a space of arbitrary dimensions. It is usually derived under the assumption that the temperature is proportional to the corpuscle's kinetic energy. We show that this law rests only upon the democritian concept of corpuscles moving in vacuum, postulating that it is independent of the law of motion. This view-point puts aside restrictive assumptions that are sources of confusion. The present paper should accordingly facilitate the understanding of the physical meaning of the ideal gas law. The mathematics is elementary.
 1: Institut d'Electronique du Sud (IES) CNRS : UMR5214 – Université Montpellier II - Sciences et techniques 2: Laboratoire d'Informatique de Robotique et de Microélectronique de Montpellier (LIRMM) CNRS : UMR5506 – Université Montpellier II - Sciences et techniques
 Research team: INFO/ARITH
 Subject : Physics/Physics/History of PhysicsPhysics/Physics/Classical PhysicsPhysics/Physics/Physics Education
 Keyword(s): Thermodynamics – Ideal gas law – Carnot principle
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 hal-00592765, version 1 http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00592765 oai:hal.archives-ouvertes.fr:hal-00592765 From: Laurent Chusseau <> Submitted on: Friday, 13 May 2011 10:10:43 Updated on: Friday, 13 May 2011 10:12:22