In Our Time: Science cover image

Kinetic Theory

In Our Time: Science

CHAPTER

The Maxwell Effect on Temperature Control

Maxwell was so worried about this result of his theory that he and his wife did experiments. The apparatus can be viewed online if you look up the Cavendish Lab Museum. You can actually see Maxwell's apparatus that he used to measure. And how did this take him? So he then established completely counter-intuitively that the viscosity of the gas is independent of pressure. This was later extended by Boltzmann to show that the thermal conductivity of theGas is independent of Pressure. But this must break down at some point, which is where the mean free power comes in. Once they can travel a long, long way, then the result that Maxwell got is no longer applicable

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