Gases are easily compressed. We can see evidence of this in Table 1 in Thermal Expansion of Solids and Liquids, where you will note that gases have the largest coefficients of volume expansion. The large coefficients mean that gases expand and contract very rapidly with temperature changes. In addition, you will note that most gases expand at the same rate, or have the same β. This raises the question as to why gases should all act in nearly the same way, when liquids and solids have widely varying expansion rates.
