An Experiment with Boyle's Law

blocks

1

2

3

4

5

view

experiment

plot

Take a large piston or sealed syringe and stand it on end, then place an increasing number of objects on top. As the pressure

p

grows, the volume

V

of the air inside will decrease—these quantities are inversely proportional. At the start, it is relatively easy to push the piston down, but as we apply a greater pressure, it becomes increasingly difficult to compress the air inside. Measuring the cross sectional area of the piston, the total weight exerted, and the volume, Boyle's law,

pV=constant

, can be validated. The plot represents this behavior quantitatively. For simplicity, magnitudes of the variables are chosen equal to 1 initially.