Flexi Says: When the temperature of a sample of gas in a rigid container is increased, the pressure of the gas increases as well. The increase in kinetic energy results in the molecules of gas striking the walls of the container with more force, resulting in a greater pressure. The French chemist Joseph Gay-Lussac (1778-1850) discovered the relationship between the pressure of a gas and its absolute temperature. Gay-Lussac’s law states that the pressure of a given mass of gas varies directly with the absolute temperature of the gas, when the volume is kept constant. Gay-Lussac’s law is very similar to Charles’s law, with the only difference being the type of container. Whereas the container in a Charles’s law experiment is flexible, it is rigid in a Gay-Lussac’s law experiment.
