Abstract
I WAS somewhat surprised to see that in spite of Mr. Atkinson's letter, Mr. Fairbourne, in NATURE of July 21, still endeavours to maintain his view that the relative gas-pressure in two communicating vessels at equal temperature depends upon the shape of the channel joining them, provided the pressure is sufficiently low. The proper method of treating the question, which of course does not lead to such an extraordinary result, may be found in any textbook on the kinetic theory, and it might have been expected that Mr. Fairbourne, before claiming to prove a paradox of this sort, would indicate in what way the usual treatment is wrong. Instead of doing so he adopts a curious treatment of his own, in which he shows that in certain circumstances more paths lead into one vessel than into the other, without con sidering that the number of molecules which enter either vessel in unit time depends not only upon the number of such paths but also upon their length. When this is taken into account the usual result is obtained, namely, that the pressure in the two vessels is equal whatever the shape of the channel between them.
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LINDEMANN, F. Selective Interruption of Molecular Movements. Nature 112, 654 (1923). https://doi.org/10.1038/112654a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/112654a0
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