An Introduction to the Kinetic Theory of Gases

132. At a collision between two molecules, energy, momentum and mass are all conserved. Energy, for instance, is neither created nor destroyed; a certain amount is transferred from one of the colliding molecules to the other. Thus the moving molecules may be regarded as transporters of energy, which they may hand on to other molecules when they collide with them. As the result of a long chain of collisions, energy may be transported from a region where the molecules have much energy to one where they have but little energy: studying such a chain of collisions we have in effect been studying the conduction of heat in a gas. If we examine the transport of momentum we shall find that we have been studying the viscosity of a gas—the subject of the present chapter. For viscosity represents a tendency for two contiguous layers of fluid to assume the same velocity, and this is effected by a transport of momentum from one layer to the other. Finally if we examine the transfer of the molecules themselves we study diffusion.

For the moment, we must study the transport of momentum. We think of the traversing of a free path of length λ as the transport of a certain amount of momentum through a distance λ. If the gas were in a steady state, every such transport would be exactly balanced by an equal and opposite transport in the reverse direction, so that the net transport would always be nil.