Luke Carlson edited introduction.tex  about 11 years ago

Commit id: 446023286e4bc2275b19d9984ed5726d3677d2ce

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To experimentally obtain a pressure, it is necessary to determine exactly how particles affect the pressure of a system. Pressure is the amount of force over a specific area, also written as $Pressure=F/A$. Force can also be described as change in momentum over change in time: $F = \frac{\Delta p}{\Delta t}$. The change momentum of a single particle equals its mass multiplied by its change in velocity: ${\Delta p} = m\Delta v$  Since there are is  more than one particle in a system, the entire change in momentum is the combined change in velocities of each particle that hits the specified area. Thus, the following formula can be used to determine total force: $F = \frac{2m * \displaystyle\sum\limits_{0}^n v}{\Delta t}$  Where $n$ is the number of collisions and $v$ is the velocity of the particle hitting the wall. Since the change in velocity is double the initial velocity, the 2 can be placed outside the summation along with the mass. Once the force has been computed using the momentum of the particles, the pressure can then be determined with the initial formula $P = F/A$.