Boyle's law
1
5.3
- noun
- /ˈbɔɪlz lɔ/
- Specialized
- According to Boyle's law, decreasing the volume occupied by a gas at constant temperature results in an increase in pressure.
Examples
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The hydrostatic weighing technique measures water displacement and is based on an application of Archimedes' principle, whereas the Bod Pod measures air displacement and is based on an application of Boyle's law.
Academic text (2006) -
However, to understand why lift occurs, it is necessary to add the First Law of Thermodynamics (energy/mass cannot be created or destroyed) and Boyle's law.
Academic text (2012) -
The principle of Boyle's law shows that if you reduce the volume of a gas while keeping the temperature constant, the pressure will increase.
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In a typical experiment, students observed Boyle's law by measuring how the pressure of a gas in a syringe changes as the volume decreases.
Synonyms
When temperature stays the same, a gas's pressure falls as its volume grows
Surface Forms
Morphology
Boyle's + law
This is a named scientific principle: 'law' signals a general rule but 'Boyle's' is a proper name that carries no semantic information about pressure or volume. A B1 learner who knows the words 'Boyle's' and 'law' would only infer that it is some law named after Boyle, not the specific inverse pressure–volume relationship, so the meaning is not derivable from the constituents.
Etymology
Boyle's law is named after the scientist Robert Boyle, who showed that when a gas is forced into a smaller space its 'pressure' rises. Imagine squeezing air into a smaller box and feeling it push harder; that's why Boyle's law explains how 'pressure' and 'volume' move in opposite ways.