Equations of state Memes

Physical chemistry students having an existential crisis in 3...2...1... The meme brilliantly captures the thermodynamic gang war that's been raging since the 1800s. Ideal Gas Law thinks it's the big shot, but Van der Waals comes in with those pesky molecular interactions. Meanwhile, Redlich-Kwong-Virial is flashing its improved accuracy at high pressures like it's showing off a new sports car. But the real victim? That poor student in the pews getting absolutely demolished by Soave-Redlich-Kwong-Peng-Robinson and literally ANY real mixture model. Nothing says "I've made terrible life choices" quite like trying to calculate fugacity coefficients at 3 AM before your p-chem final.

The meme pokes fun at the beauty standards in chemistry equations! On the left is the complex van der Waals equation of state (with all those pesky parameters and squared terms), while on the right is the elegantly simple ideal gas law (PV = nRT). Chemistry textbooks and professors often treat the ideal gas law as "less accurate" or "less attractive" than its complicated counterparts, but let's be honest—the simplicity of PV = nRT is the equivalent of supermodel-level hotness in equation form. Why use many variables when few variables do trick? Justice for the ideal gas law! It's the equation equivalent of that friend who rolls out of bed looking perfect while the rest of us need two hours of prep.