The ideal gas law is the equation of state of a hypothetical ideal gas. It is a good approximation to the behavior of many gases under many conditions, although it has several limitations. It was first stated by Émile Clapeyron in 1834 as a combination of Boyle's law and Charles's law. It can also be derived from kinetic theory, as was achieved (apparently independently) by August Krönig in 1856 and Rudolf Clausius in 1857.
The state of an amount of gas is determined by its pressure, volume, and temperature. The modern form of the equation relates these simply in two main forms. The temperature used in the equation of state is an absolute temperature: in the SI system of units, kelvins; in the Imperial system, degrees Rankine.
The most frequently introduced form is
where P is the pressure of the gas, V is the volume of the gas, n is the amount of substance of gas (also known as number of moles), T is the temperature of the gas and R is the ideal, or universal, gas constant, equal to the product of Boltzmann's constant and Avogadro's constant.