An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

In a → perfect gas where mass and temperature are kept constant, the volume of the gas will vary inversely with the absolute pressure. The law can be expressed as PV = constant, where P = absolute pressure and V = volume.

See also: After Robert Boyle (1627-1691), an Irish philosopher, chemist, and physicist, and Edme Mariotte (1620-1684), a French physicist and pioneer of neurophysiology, who discovered the law independently, the first one in 1662 and the second one in 1676; → law.