According to Boyle's Law, what is the relationship between volume and pressure?

Boyle's Law states that at a constant temperature, the pressure and volume of a gas are inversely related. This means that when the volume of a gas increases, the pressure decreases, and vice versa, provided that the temperature remains constant throughout the process. The mathematical representation of Boyle's Law can be expressed as ( P \propto \frac{1}{V} ), which illustrates this inverse relationship.

In practical terms, if you were to compress a gas into a smaller volume (decreasing volume), the pressure of that gas would increase because the molecules have less space to move around, colliding more frequently with the walls of their container. Conversely, if the volume is allowed to expand, the pressure would decrease as the molecules spread out and have more space between collisions.

This understanding is fundamental in various applications, including respiratory physiology, where changes in lung volume during breathing affect the pressures within the lungs, enabling air to flow in and out. This illustrates the critical role that Boyle's Law plays in both basic physics and practical scenarios involving gas behavior.