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The red dots represent atoms. They are bouncing around in a
cylinder, the top of which is a piston you can drag up and down.
When the piston is dragged down, the volume of the gas is decreased, which increases gas pressure. |
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The red bar on this side is a thermostat. You can change the temperature of the gas by dragging the top of the red bar up and down. As you increase the temperature, you see the atoms speed up, which increases the pressure as the atoms hit the sides of the cylinder harder. As you decrease the temperature, pressure goes down. |
The pressure gague works, in this applet, by adding up the forces exerted on the piston head when it is hit by the red gas atoms. The amount of force exerted per unit area is the pressure exerted by the gas.
In a real gas, there are millions of collisions per second, and percieved pressure changes instantly when you change volume or temperature or the number of gas atoms.
Our simulated atoms move a lot slower than real ones,
so there is a perceptible time lag in the pressure reading.
Click here if your brain is not too full to handle more
information on the ideal gas law.