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Gases have very low densities

Updated: 8/10/2023
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11y ago

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Not necessarily. At very high temperatures and pressures it's possible for something to be quite dense and still be a gas. But unless you're talking about conditions like those in the hearts of stars, yeah, your statement is pretty true.

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11y ago
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15y ago

Let's wander around a bit and see if we can maneuver our way to an answer. Hang on. Here we go. We generally encounter "stuff" in our experience that presents itself in one of the three basic states of matter - solid, liquid or gas. We know about plasma, which is another phase of matter that is "above" gas. A plasma is a superheated material. The sun is a ball of "burning" plasma. There are a couple of other states of matter, too, but we're just going to look at solids, liquids and gases for this one. But first we need to know about thermal energies and changes of state. When stuff is "cold" around us, it can become a solid. We all know about water freezing; it is changing state from a liquid to a solid. When materials change state from a liquid to a solid, they give up thermal energy to cool and then give up more to make the transition from a liquid at a given temperature to a solid at that same given temperature. Yes, that's right. It takes a decrease in the thermal energy of a material to cause it to change phase. And it does not reduce the temperature. Water at 0 degrees Celsius must lose a bit of energy to change into ice at that same temperature. Of course, it is easy to see that there is a wide range in the freezing and boiling points of materials. Lots of metals have high melting points, and even higher boiling points. And gases have low boiling points, and even lower freezing points. Let's look at gases and their thermal energy. We know that the thermal energy of a material, along with the type of material it is, will determine whether it is a solid, liquid or gas. When a material has enough thermal energy, it boils and becomes a gas. Here's the deal. When a group of atoms or molecules has so much thermal energy that it changes state from a liquid to a gas, the atoms are fighting each other, that is, fighting any and all forces that want to keep the atoms or molecules "together" in their liquid phase or state. These atoms or molecules have so much thermal energy that they're trying to "break out" of their liquid situation. The atoms or molecules have so much kinetic energy that they cannot "stay connected" in their liquid form. They want to get the heck away from each other, to put space between them and any other atoms or molecules. They want to boil, to change phase into a gas. That way the gas atoms or molecules can "fly around" under the influence of all this thermal energy. They will be "bouncing off the walls" of the container they are in trying to get out. Certainly if they run into other atoms or molecules, there will be a serious collision, and the particles will fly off in different directions after rebounding. It's chaos. And that's why gases generally have a low density, at least pertty darn low compared to liquids or solids. Gases have a low density because the atoms or molecules of the gas have very high thermal energies. (This doesn't necessarily mean high temperature, but it does mean high thermal energy.) Gas atoms or molecules, with their high thermal energies, have high kinetic energies, too. The atoms and molecules are in violent motion and want no part of each other. They want to put as much distance between themselves and any other atoms or molecules as they can. This results in few atoms or molecules in a whole lot of space - and this transliates into low density. The thermal kinetic energy of gas atoms or molecules is so high that they will occupy as much volume as they can. The gas will have a low density as a consequence.

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11y ago

As gas molecules are very far from each other(having large intermolecular space), they seem to occupy large space but the actual volume the molecules of the gas is very small compared to the volume of space occupied by the gas molecules. In case of solid; molecules are tightly packed so there is no intermolecular space between them and the space occupied by the molecules become equal to the actual volume of the molecules.

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10y ago

becouse the molecules are spreaded out

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Q: Gases have very low densities
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Gases form the shape of their container and have very low densities.


Do noble gases have low densities?

Yes. they do


Why are gases not always visible while most liquids and solids are visible?

It's mostly to do with density. In simple terms, gases have very low densities compared to solids and liquids, so that their molecules/atoms cause very little scatting of light as it passes through them.


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In strict logical inference, nothing, because there could be very dense nonmetals to compensate for the gases. However, in fact the densities of nonmetals on average are less than the densities of metals.


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A low-density gas would have molecules that are farther apart and fewer in numbers per unit volume.


What are the basic properties of gas?

1) Gases have no definite shape - they change their shapes along with the shape of their container 2) Gases have no definite volume - they can be compressed easily 3) Gases particles are located far apart from each other 4) Gases particles move freely in all directions (Brownian motion) 5) Gases diffuse rapidly 6) Gases have weak intermolecular attraction forces 7) Gases have generally low densities 8) Gases have very low viscosities


Are the noble gases very stable and have low reactivity?

Yes. They are also referred to as the inert gases.


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Why were gases that Ramsay discovered was not able to be discovered any earlier?

These gases exist only in very low concentration and also are very unreactive.