The pressure of a gas arises from molecules colliding with the walls. This section starts from the microscopic origin of pressure and arrives, from kinetic theory alone, at the ideal gas equation of state PV=nRTPV = nRT: the bridge between the invisible world of atoms and measurable quantities such as pressure and temperature.

Try it — interactive simulation

Compress the gas, heat it or add particles and watch how pressure, volume and temperature relate through the ideal-gas law.

Simulation Gas Properties — PhET Interactive Simulations, University of Colorado Boulder, phet.colorado.edu (CC BY 4.0).