Question

If the pressure of a gas is really due to the random collisions of molecules with the walls of the container, why do pressure gauges – even very sensitive ones – give perfectly steady readings? Shouldn't the gauge be continually jiggling and fluctuating? Explain.

Answer 1

Answer:

there is no fluctuation in the measurement because the quantity of molecule is too large and a quantity of some molecules is imperceptible.

Explanation:

The pressure measurement is carried out by calibrating the force exerted by the air on a surface of known area, suppose a small area 1 mm² = 0.01 cm²

To find out if the random movement of air molecules affects the pressure reading, let's calculate the number of molecules that reaches the pressure gauge.

In a system at atmospheric pressure and in a volume of 1 m³ (walls of 1 m each) there is one mole of air molecules, this mole is evenly distributed, so how many molecules fall on our surface

           # _molecule = 6.02 10²³ 0.01 10⁻⁴ / 1

           #_molecular = 6.02 10¹⁷ molecules per second

therefore the variation of the number of molecules is not very important

Consequently there is no fluctuation in the measurement because the quantity of molecule is too large and a quantity of some molecules is imperceptible.