XXVIII. On the motion of gases

Abstract

The spontaneous intermixture of different gases, and their passage under pressure through apertures in thin plates and by tubes, form a class of phenomena of which the laws have been only partially established by experiment. The separation of two gases by a porous screen, such as a plate of dry stucco, will prevent for a short time any sensible intermixture arising from slight inequalities of pressure, but such a barrier is readily overcome by the diffusive power of the gases, which is fully equal to their whole elastic force. Hence a cylindrical glass jar with a stucco top, filled with any gas and standing over water, affords the means of demonstrating the un­equal diffusive velocities of air and the gas, by the final contraction or expansion of the gaseous contents of the jar, after the escape of the gas is completed. Compared with the volume of air which has entered, the volume of gas which has passed simul­taneously outwards is found to be in the inverse proportion of the square root of the specific gravity of the gas. The diffusive velocities therefore of different gases are inversely as the square root of their densities; or the times of diffusion of equal volumes directly as the square root of the densities of the gases. Such is also the theoretical law of the passage of gases into a vacuum, according to the well-known theorem that the molecules of a gas rush into a vacuum with the velocity they would acquire by falling from the summit of an atmosphere of the gas of the same density throughout; while the height of such an atmosphere, composed of different gases, is inversely as their specific gravities. This is a particular case of the general law of the movement of fluids, well-established by observation for liquids, and extended by analogy to gases. The experiments which have ah eddy been made upon air and other gases, by M. P. S. Girard and by Mr. Faraday, are sufficient to show that the discharge of light is more rapid than that of heavy gases; and are interesting as first approximations, although incomplete and lending a very impel feet support to the theoretical law. Indeed some results obtained by these experimenters and others, appear wholly inconsistent with that law, such as Mr. Faraday’s curious observations of the change of the relative rates of hydrogen and olefiant gases in passing through a capillary tube under different pressures; and my own observation, that carbonic acid gas is forced by pressure through a porous mass of stucco as quickly or more so than air is, although more than a half heavier; and that other gases pass in times which have no obvious relation to their diffusive velocities.