Focusing on the universal laws, characteristics, and tendencies common to nearly all gases, this book is an excellent primer on how gases behave and react under various typical laboratory and real-world conditions. It provides compelling profiles of the scientists who discovered many gases, pioneered our understanding of them, and formulated many of the "Gas laws." The book features an intriguing section on the practical uses of gases in our everyday world, from fire extinguishers and air bags to carbonated soda and methane fuel cells. Finally, it concludes with a discussion of global warming from the perspective of gases and the gas laws discussed in earlier chapters. Tying everything together in this way and ending on a hopeful, encouraging note, this book makes invisible gases entirely present to the reader and explains just how important they are to life on Earth.
