Question

How would a graph of pressure versus volume appear for a given quantity of gas?

Answer 1

Boyle's Law was:

`PV = "const"`

so if one plots `P` vs. `V`, it would have to be like this:

`P = "const" * 1/V`

http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/

You can see that it resembles `f(x) = 1/x`:

graph{1/x [-10,-10, -5, 5]}

If `P` was truly able to reach `0`, it would imply that `V -> oo`. Clearly, we cannot have an infinitely-large container, and thus, volume can never truly be infinite.

Similarly, it is impossible to have a volume of `0`, because we would not have a system. It would also imply an infinite pressure, which is also impossible; pressure has been measurable for as long as we've had mercury manometers.