When the temperature remains constant, a volume of gas is inversely proportional to the surrounding pressure; this describes which law?

When the temperature remains constant, a volume of gas is inversely proportional to the surrounding pressure; this describes which law?

• A. Ideal Gas Law
• B. Boyle's Law
• C. Dalton's Law
• D. Henry's Law

Answer: (B)

Understanding how a gas behaves when temperature is held constant is the essence here. For a fixed amount of gas at a constant temperature, the product of pressure and volume stays the same, so pressure and volume are inversely related. This means if the pressure goes up, the volume must shrink to keep PV constant. Intuitively, when you compress the gas, the same number of particles collide with the container walls more often, raising pressure, but because temperature (and thus the average molecular speed) isn’t changing, the system settles into a new volume where P × V remains constant. In the broader framework of the ideal gas law, this is the isothermal form where P = nRT / V; with T and n fixed, P ∝ 1/V.

Understanding how a gas behaves when temperature is held constant is the essence here. For a fixed amount of gas at a constant temperature, the product of pressure and volume stays the same, so pressure and volume are inversely related. This means if the pressure goes up, the volume must shrink to keep PV constant. Intuitively, when you compress the gas, the same number of particles collide with the container walls more often, raising pressure, but because temperature (and thus the average molecular speed) isn’t changing, the system settles into a new volume where P × V remains constant. In the broader framework of the ideal gas law, this is the isothermal form where P = nRT / V; with T and n fixed, P ∝ 1/V.