The total pressure of a mixture of gases is equal to which of the following?

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Multiple Choice

The total pressure of a mixture of gases is equal to which of the following?

Think about how gases in a container behave: each gas contributes its own pressure as if it were alone in the same volume. The total pressure is the sum of these individual (partial) pressures, which is Dalton’s law of partial pressures. In an ideal gas mixture at the same temperature and volume, each gas’s partial pressure reflects its mole fraction, and the total pressure equals the sum of all partial pressures. This means adding the contributions from each gas directly increases the overall pressure. The ideas of multiplying, averaging, or taking a difference do not describe how pressures combine in a gas mixture, so they don’t fit the observed behavior (with real gases, deviations can occur at high pressures, but the additive rule is the starting point).

Think about how gases in a container behave: each gas contributes its own pressure as if it were alone in the same volume. The total pressure is the sum of these individual (partial) pressures, which is Dalton’s law of partial pressures. In an ideal gas mixture at the same temperature and volume, each gas’s partial pressure reflects its mole fraction, and the total pressure equals the sum of all partial pressures. This means adding the contributions from each gas directly increases the overall pressure. The ideas of multiplying, averaging, or taking a difference do not describe how pressures combine in a gas mixture, so they don’t fit the observed behavior (with real gases, deviations can occur at high pressures, but the additive rule is the starting point).

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