The aim of kinetic theory is to account for the properties of gases in terms of the forces between the molecules, assuming that their motions are described by the laws of mechanics (usually classical Newtonian mechanics, although quantum mechanics is needed in some cases). The present discussion focuses on dilute ideal gases, in which molecular collisions of at most two bodies are of primary importance. Only the simplest theories are treated here in order to avoid obscuring the fundamental physics with complex mathematics.
Ideal gas
The ideal gas equation of state can be deduced by calculating the pressure as caused by molecular impacts on a container wall. The internal energy and Dalton’s law of partial pressures also emerge from this calculation, along with some free-molecule phenomena. The calculation is significant because it is basically the same one used to explain all dilute-gas phenomena.
Pressure
Newton’s second law of motion can be stated in not-so-familiar form as impulse equals change in momentum, where impulse is force multiplied by the time during which it acts. A molecule experiences a change in momentum when it collides with a container wall; during the collision an impulse is imparted by the wall to the molecule that is equal and opposite to the impulse imparted by the molecule to the wall. This is required by Newton’s third law. The sum of the impulses imparted by all the molecules to the wall is, in effect, the pressure. Consider a system of molecules of mass m traveling with a velocity v in an enclosed container. In order to arrive at an expression for the pressure, a calculation will be made of the impulse imparted to one of the walls by a single impact, followed by a calculation of how many impacts occur on that wall during a time t. Although the molecules are moving in all directions, only those with a component of velocity toward the wall can collide with it; call this component vz, where z represents the direction directly toward the wall. Not all molecules have the same vz, of course; perhaps only Nz out of a total of N molecules do. To find the total pressure, the contributions from molecules with all different values of vz must be summed. A molecule approaches the wall with an initial momentum mvz, and after impact it moves away from the wall with an equal momentum in the opposite direction, -mvz. Thus, the total change in momentum is mvz - (-mvz) = 2mvz, which is equal to the total impulse imparted to the wall.
The number of impacts on a small area A of the wall in time t is equal to the number of molecules that reach the wall in time t. Since the molecules are traveling at speed vz, only those within a distance vzt and moving toward the wall will reach it in that time. Thus, the molecules that are traveling toward the wall and are within a volume Avzt will strike the area A of the wall in time t. On the average, half of the molecules in this volume will be moving toward the wall. If Nz molecules with speed component vz are present in the total volume V, then (1/2)(Nz/V)(A)(vzt) molecules in the collision volume will hit, and each one contributes an impulse of 2mvz. The total impulse in time t is therefore (1/2)(Nz/V)(A)(vzt)(2mvz) = (Nz/V)(mvz2)(At), which is equal to Ft, where F is the force on the wall due to the impacts. Equating these two expressions, the time factor t cancels out. Since pressure is defined as the force per unit area (F/A), it follows that the contribution to the pressure from the molecules with speed vz is thus (Nz/V)mvz2. Because there are different values of vz2 for different molecules, the average value, denoted , is used to take into account the contributions from all the molecules. The pressure is thus given as p = (N/V)m.
Since the molecules are in random motion, this result is independent of the choice of axis. For any choice of (x, y, z) axes, the magnitude of the velocity is v2 = vx2 + vy2 + vz2 (which is just the Pythagorean theorem in three dimensions), and taking the average gives = + + . The gas is in equilibrium, so it must appear the same in any direction, and the average velocities are therefore the same in all directions—i.e., = = ; thus = 3. When the value (1/3) is substituted for vz2 in the expression for pressure, the following equation is obtained:
To rewrite this in molar units, N is set equal to nN0—i.e., the product of the number of moles n and Avogadro’s number N0—to give
where M = N0m is the molecular weight of the gas and v is the volume per mole (V/n). Since the ideal gas equation of state relates pressure, molar volume, and temperature as pv = RT, the temperature T must be related to the average kinetic energy of the molecules as
This expression is often written in molecular (rather than molar) terms as (1/2)[m] = (3/2)kT, where k = R/N0 is called Boltzmann’s constant. If the gas is a mixture, the foregoing calculation shows that the impacts of the different species are simply added separately, and Dalton’s law of partial pressures follows directly.
The energy law given as equation (16) also follows from equation (19): the kinetic energy of translational motion per mole is (3/2)RT. Any energy residing in the internal motions of the individual molecules is simply carried separately without contributing to the pressure.
Average molecular speeds can be calculated from the results of kinetic theory in terms of the so-called root-mean-square speed vrms. The vrms is the square root of the average of the squares of the speeds of the molecules: ()1/2. From equation (19) the vrms is (3RT/M)1/2. At 20° C the value for air (M = 29) is 502 m/s, a result very close to the rough estimate of 5 × 102 m/s given above.
Molecule-molecule collisions were not considered in the calculation of the expression for pressure even though many such collisions occur. Such collisions could be ignored because they are elastic; i.e., linear momentum is conserved in the collision, provided that no external forces act. Two molecules therefore continue to carry the same momentum to the wall even if they collide with one another before striking it. The ideal gas equation of state remains valid as the density is decreased, even holding for a free-molecule gas. The equation eventually fails as the density is increased, however, because other molecules exert forces and change the rate of collisions with the walls.
It was not until the mid- to late 19th century that kinetic theory was successfully applied to such calculations as gas pressure. Such notable scientists as Sir Isaac Newton and John Dalton had believed that gas pressure was caused by repulsions between molecules that pushed them against the container walls. For many reasons, the kinetic theory had overshadowed such static theories (and others such as vortex theories) by about 1860. It was not until 1875, however, that Maxwell actually proved that a static theory was in conflict with experiment.