By experiments conducted on this principle Kundt and Warburg found that mercury vapour gave numbers agreeing with the theoretical ratio 1.67. Now, its vapour density shows that mercury vapour is a monatomic gas; it actually fulfils the conditions prescribed for a gas which theory indicates should give the value 1.67. All the energy imparted to its molecules on heating simply accelerates their translational velocity. On the other hand, all the gases above named as giving values below 1.67 are diatomic gases; in their case the energy imparted to them is employed partly in augmenting the translational velocity of the molecules, and partly in bringing about internal changes within them. By experiments made in like manner Ramsay and Travers succeeded in showing that the inert gases of the atmosphere are monatomic.
No attempt can be made here to explain the various methods by which it has been sought to obtain an estimate of the absolute size of gaseous molecules or to determine their number in a definite volume. By observations on their viscosity, rates of diffusion, conductivity for heat, variations from the law of Boyle, dielectric constants, electric charges, etc., Maxwell, O. E. Meyer, Loschmidt, Lothar Meyer, Van der Waals, Mossotti, Planck, Sir J. J. Thomson, and others, have arrived at estimates of the magnitude and number of molecules in a gas. These estimates necessarily vary with the hypotheses made in deducing them. It would serve no useful purpose to give the results, since the figures convey no impression to the mind of the minuteness of molecules, or even as to the extraordinary number of them in, say, so small a volume as one cubic centimetre. As an example, it has been calculated that there are about 640 trillions of hydrogen molecules in one milligram of the gas.[3]
[3] O. E. Meyer, _The Kinetic Theory of Gases_, 1899.