Having now learned what air is, the next question which presents itself is, Why does it stay round our earth?  You will remember we saw in the first lecture, that all the little atoms of a gas are trying to fly away from each other, so that if I turn on this gas-jet the atoms soon leave it, and reach you at the farther end of the room, and you can smell the gas.  Why, then, do not all the atoms of oxygen and nitrogen fly away from our earth into space, and leave us without any air?

Ah! here you must look for another of our invisible forces.  Have you forgotten our giant force, “gravitation,” which draws things together from a distance?  This force draws together the earth and the atoms of oxygen and nitrogen; and as the earth is very big and heavy, and the atoms of air are light and easily moved, they are drawn down to the earth and held there by gravitation.  But for all that, the atmosphere does not leave off trying to fly away; it is always pressing upwards and outwards with all its might, while the earth is doing its best to hold it down.

The effect of this is, that near the earth, where the pull downward is very strong, the air-atoms are drawn very closely together, because gravitation gets the best of the struggle.  But as we get farther and farther from the earth, the pull downward becomes weaker, and then the air-atoms spring farther apart, and the air becomes thinner.  Suppose that the lines in this diagram represent layers of air.  Near the earth we have to represent them as lying closely together, but as they recede from the earth they are also farther apart.

But the chief reason why the air is thicker or denser nearer the earth, is because the upper layers press it down.  If you have a heap of papers lying one on the top of the other, you know that those at the bottom of the heap will be more closely pressed together than those above, and just the same is the case with the atoms of the air.  Only there is this difference, if the papers have lain for some time, when you take the top ones off, the under ones remain close together.  But it is not so with the air, because air is elastic, and the atoms are always trying to fly apart, so that directly you take away the pressure they spring up again as far as they can.

Week 8

I have here an ordinary pop-gun.  If I push the cork in very tight, and then force the piston slowly inwards, I can compress the air a good deal.  Now I am forcing the atoms nearer and nearer together, but at last they rebel so strongly against being more crowded that the cork cannot resist their pressure.  Out it flies, and the atoms spread themselves out comfortably again in the air all around them.  Now, just as I pressed the air together in the pop-gun, so the atmosphere high up above the earth presses on the air below and keeps the atoms closely packed together.  And in this case the atoms cannot force back the air above them as they did the cork in the pop-gun; they are obliged to submit to be pressed together.