gas constant

n. Symbol R A constant, equal to 8.314 joules per kelvin, 0.08206 liter atmospheres per mole kelvin, or 1.985 calories per degree Celsius, that is the constant of proportionality in the ideal gas law.

gas constant

n (General Physics) the constant in the gas equation. It is equal to 8.31472 joules per kelvin per mole. Symbol: R Also called: universal gas constant

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Noun

gas constant - (physics) the universal constant in the gas equation: pressure times volume = R times temperature; equal to 8.3143 joules per kelvin per moleuniversal gas constant, Rnatural philosophy, physics - the science of matter and energy and their interactions; "his favorite subject was physics"constant - a number representing a quantity assumed to have a fixed value in a specified mathematical context; "the velocity of light is a constant"

gas constant

Gas constant

The universal constant R (1) that appears in the ideal gas law, Eq. (1), where P is the pressure, V the volume, n the amount of substance, and T the thermodynamic (absolute) temperature. The gas constant is universal in that it applies to all gases, providing they are behaving ideally (in the limit of zero pressure). The gas constant is related to the more fundamental Boltzmann constant, k, by (2) Eq. (2), where N_A is the Avogadro constant (the number of entities per mole). The best modern value in SI units is R = 8.314 472 (15) J/K ċ mol, where the number in parentheses represents the uncertainty in the last two digits. See Boltzmann constant

According to the equipartition principle, at a temperature T, the average molar energy of each quadratic term in the expression for the energy is (1/2)RT; as a consequence, the translational contribution to the molar heat capacity of a gas at constant volume is (3/2)R; the rotational contribution of a linear molecule is R. See Kinetic theory of matter

Largely because R is related to the Boltzmann constant, it appears in a wide variety of contexts, including properties unrelated to gases. Thus, it occurs in Boltzmann's formula for the molar entropy of any substance, Eq. (3), (3) where W is the number of arrangements of the system that are consistent with the same energy; and in the Nernst equation for the potential of an electrochemical cell, Eq. (4), (4) where E° is a standard potential, F is the Faraday constant, and Q is a function of the composition of the cell. The gas constant also appears in the Boltzmann distribution for the population of energy levels when the energy of a level is expressed as a molar quantity. See Boltzmann statistics, Entropy

gas constant

[′gas ‚kän·stənt] (thermodynamics) The constant of proportionality appearing in the equation of state of an ideal gas, equal to the pressure of the gas times its molar volume divided by its temperature. Also known as gas-law constant; universal gas constant.

gas constant

gas constant

gas constant

gas constant

Gas constant

gas constant

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gas con·stant (R),

gas constant

Synonyms for gas constant

noun (physics) the universal constant in the gas equation: pressure times volume = R times temperature

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