Boyle's law

American  

noun

Thermodynamics.

1. the principle that, for relatively low pressures, the pressure of an ideal gas kept at constant temperature varies inversely with the volume of the gas.

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Boyle's law British  

noun

1. the principle that the pressure of a gas varies inversely with its volume at constant temperature

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Boyle's law Scientific  

/ boilz /

1. The principle that the volume of a given mass of an ideal gas is inversely proportional to its pressure, as long as temperature remains constant. Boyle's law is a subcase of the ideal gas law.

2. Compare Charles's law

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Etymology

Origin of Boyle's law

Named after R. Boyle

Example Sentences

“According to Boyle’s law, if the temperature doesn’t change, pressure and volume are inversely correlated, which means that pressure changes in the environment can cause expansion or contraction of air-space cavities in the body.”

From Los Angeles Times

There are two laws relating to gases that can be used here to work out the behaviour of the air mix of argon and oxygen: Charles’ Law to add the components up, and Boyle’s Law to show what happens when the pressure increases.

From Scientific American

Many letters to Katherine provide a window on his life in Dorset, and in a letter to another friend he mentions seeing an air gun which could use the force of compressed air to fire a lead ball capable of killing a man at a distance of thirty paces—an observation which clearly set him thinking along the lines that were to lead to his discovery of Boyle’s law.

From Literature

Buffon could, if he wished, look back to the seventeenth century and identify a whole series of laws that had been discovered during the Scientific Revolution: Stevin’s law of hydrostatics, Galileo’s law of fall, Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, Snell’s law of refraction, Boyle’s law of gases, Hooke’s law of elasticity, Huygens’ law of the pendulum, Torricelli’s law of flow, Pascal’s law of fluid dynamics, Newton’s laws of motion and law of gravity.

From Literature

You might think that Boyle’s law is a bit like the New World—it was there waiting to be discovered.

From Literature