History of chemistry 1808, certain of his central ideas were soon adopted by most chemists. However, uncertainty persisted for half a century about how atomic theory was to be configured and applied to concrete situations; chemists in different countries developed several different incompatible atomistic systems. A paper that suggested a way out of this difficult situation was published as early as 1811 by the Italian physicist Amedeo Avogadro (1776-1856), who hypothesized that equal volumes of gases at the same temperature and pressure contain equal numbers of molecules, from which it followed that relative molecular weights of any two gases are the same as
Temperature other systems, vibrational and rotational motions also contribute degrees of freedom. Maxwell and Boltzmann developed a kinetic theory that yields a fundamental understanding of temperature in gases. This theory also explains the ideal gas law and the observed heat capacity of monatomic (or 'noble') gases. The ideal gas law is based on observed empirical relationships between pressure ("p"), volume ("V"), and temperature ("T"), and was recognized long before the kinetic theory of gases was developed (see Boyle's and Charles's laws). The ideal gas law states: where "n" is the number of moles of gas and is the gas constant. This