Gay-Lussac's law
- noun
- /ɡeɪ lʊˈsækz lɔ/
- Specialized
:
ley de Gay-Lussac
- According to Gay-Lussac's law, when the temperature of a gas increases while its volume remains constant, its pressure also rises.
Examples
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According to Gay-Lussac's law, increasing the temperature of a gas at constant volume raises its pressure.
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According to Gay-Lussac's law, pressure increases with temperature.
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Engineers use Gay-Lussac's law to predict how pressure changes in heated gas containers.
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Many introductory physics courses discuss Gay-Lussac's law when covering the behavior of gases.
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Did you learn about Gay-Lussac's law in physics class?
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Using Gay-Lussac's law, scientists can calculate how the pressure of a gas will change as it is heated.
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In physics, students learn about Gay-Lussac's law to understand the relationship between temperature and pressure in gases.
Surface Forms
Morphology
Gay-Lussac's + law
This is an eponymous scientific name: the proper name 'Gay-Lussac's' gives no information about the physical relationship described, and knowing 'law' only signals a general scientific principle, not the specific pressure–temperature relation. Because the content cannot be derived from the constituent words and requires factual knowledge of the law, it is not predictable for a B1 learner.
Etymology
Gay-Lussac's law is named after the French scientist Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, who showed that if a gas is trapped in a fixed container and you heat it, the tiny particles move faster and hit the walls harder, so the pressure rises. That's why Gay-Lussac's law says the pressure of a gas goes up when its temperature goes up while the container stays the same size.
