Charles's Law, also known as the
law of volumes, is a gas law that describes the relationship between the volume
of a gas and its temperature. The law states that, at constant pressure, the
volume of a given amount of gas is directly proportional to its temperature in
kelvins (K).
Mathematically, Charles's law can be expressed as:
V / T = k
Where V is the volume of the gas, T is the temperature
in kelvins, and k is a constant.
Charles's law is one of the four fundamental gas
laws that describe the behavior of gases, along with Boyle's law (describing
the relationship between pressure and volume), Gay-Lussac's law (describing the
relationship between pressure and temperature), and the combined gas law
(describing the relationship between all three variables).
Charles's law has important practical applications
in fields such as meteorology, thermodynamics, and engineering. It is also used
in the study of atmospheric sciences to describe the behavior of gases in the
Earth's atmosphere, including the changes in atmospheric temperature with
altitude.