International Journal of the Physical Sciences Vol. 5(10), pp. 1524-1529, 4 September, 2010
Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/IJPS
ISSN 1992 - 1950 ©2010 Academic Journals
Full Length Research Paper
The classical adiabatic constancy of PV
γ
for an ideal
gas as a quantum mechanical occurrence
Tolga Yarman
1
, Alexander L. Kholmetskii
2,3
* and Önder Korfali
4
1
Department of Engineering, Okan University, Akfirat, Istanbul, Turkey and Savronik, Eskisehir, Turkey.
2
Department of Physics, Belarus State University, 4 Nezavisimosti Avenue, 220030 Minsk, Belarus.
3
Okan University, Akfirat, Istanbul, Turkey.
4
Galatasaray University, Ortaköy, Istanbul, Turkey.
Accepted 29 June, 2010
In this paper, a connection between the long lasting macroscopic classical laws of gases and the
quantum mechanical description of non-interacting particles confined in a box was found, thus
constituting an ideal gas. In such a gas, the motion of each individual molecule can be considered to be
independent of all other molecules, and the macroscopic parameters of an ideal gas, mainly, pressure P
and temperature T, can be defined as simple average quantities based on individual motions of all
molecules in consideration. It is shown that for an ideal gas enclosed in a macroscopic box of volume
V, the constant γ
γ
γ appearing in the classical law of adiabatic expansion law, that is,
t cons PV tan =
γ
, can
be derived based on quantum mechanics. Physical implications of the result we disclose are discussed.
Key words: Adiabatic transformation, quantum mechanics, kinetic theory of gases.
INTRODUCTION
From time to time, most of us, no doubt, just like many
scientists of the 20th century, were puzzled with the
question of finding a link between the Boltzmann
Constant k and the Planck Constant h. In particular, one
can refer to the de Broglie doctorate thesis, where he
brilliantly has applied his relationship (associating a wave
length with the momentum of a moving particle) to the
statistical equilibrium of gases (de Broglie, 1925), but did
not advance his idea, to see whether one can along such
a line, obtain anything related to the law of gases,
established long ago, in 1650. At the second half of the
past century a possible relationship between k, h as well
as the light velocity in vacuum c has been explored in
details by Dannenhower (1977). However, he concluded
that the existence of a solution is not evident; thus
according to him the issue remains unresolved. We will
see below that this is actually a vain effort.
*Corresponding author. E-mail: khol123@yahoo.com.
Let us assume that the gas is made of just one kind of
molecule. The Boyle-Mariotte law of ideal gas is given as
usual by
kNT RT n PV
m
= =
(1)
where P is the pressure of the gas, V the volume of the
gas, T the temperature of the gas, n
m
the number of
moles the gas is made of, N the number of molecules
making the gas, R= 8.31 J/K is the gas constant,
A
N R k / =
(2)
is the Boltzmann constant, and
A
N
the Avagadro
number.
The kinetic theory of gases allows us to derive the same
casing as that of Equation (1) via considering the
momentum change of each molecule separately, when
bouncing back from a wall of the given container