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Charles' Law

It can be shown, using a glass tube open at one end containing dry air trapped in the tube by a suitable liquid, that for a fixed mass of gas, the volume of the gas V is directly proportional to its temperature T provided its pressure is kept constant.
V / T = constant
If a graph of V is plotted against temperature in °C a straight line is obtained which does not go through the origin. However, the graph can be extrapolated to meet the temperature axis at -273.15°C or absolute zero (0K). The volume is directly proportional to the absolute temperature using the kelvin scale.

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Specification: OCR Physics A (H556), A-level, 5.1.4 Ideal gases. Topic: Gases.

Key terms in this lesson

radian
The angle subtended at the centre of a circle by an arc equal in length to the radius of the circle.

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