Answer 1:
Air is composed of particles in a state of
matter called a gas. Gases exist when the atoms
or molecules that are present aren't joined
together; when they are joined loosely they form a
liquid, while a tight packing of molecules creates
a solid. You can think of a gas as a bunch of
little balls zooming around in random
directions. The Pressure of a gas is
determined by how tightly packed together those
independent particles get-- if each particle is a
long distance from any other particles, that's a
very diffuse gas. If we take a piston filled with
a diffuse gas and push the piston in-- putting the
same amount of gas particles into a smaller
volume, then the pressure of the gas
increases. The speed at which the individual
particles of the gas move, however,isn't dependent
on the pressure-- you could have a diffuse gas of
slow or fast moving particles. The speed of the
particles is dependent on the temperature. In
fact, temperature IS the amount of motion that
particles undergo. For example, when you heat a
glass of water in the microwave, the microwave
energy is making the water molecules move faster,
which means the same thing as increasing the
temperature. So, no-- air particles don't
move any faster when they are under pressure.
That is, unless you puncture a hole-- if you had
a container of air under pressure, and punctured a
hole, the pressure inside would attempt to
normalize with the pressure outside, causing the
air to rush out very quickly-- and potentially
dangerously. Cheers, Click Here to return to the search form.
|