Graham's law has come to denote an important class of finely divided materials. Around the time Graham did his work, the concept of molecular weight was being established largely through the measurements of gases. Daniel Bernoulli suggested in 1738 in his book Hydrodynamica that heat increases in proportion to the velocity, and thus kinetic energy, of gas particles. Italian physicist Amedeo Avogadro also suggested in 1811 that equal volumes of different gases contain equal numbers of molecules. Thus, the relative molecular weights of two gases are equal to the ratio of weights of equal volumes of the gases. Avogadro's insight together with
Avogadro's law Avogadro's law Avogadro's law (sometimes referred to as Avogadro's hypothesis or Avogadro's principle) is an experimental gas law relating the volume of a gas to the amount of substance of gas present. The law is a specific case of the ideal gas law. A modern statement is: Avogadro's law states that, "equal volumes of all gases, at the same temperature and pressure, have the same number of molecules." For a given mass of an ideal gas, the volume and amount (moles) of the gas are directly proportional if the temperature and pressure are constant. The law is named after Amedeo