static theory of gases

…and for many years a static picture of gases was instead espoused, in which the pressure, for instance, was attributed to repulsive forces between essentially stationary particles pushing on the container walls. How the kinetic-molecular picture finally came to be universally accepted is a fascinating piece of scientific history and…

…kinetic theory had overshadowed such static theories (and others such as vortex theories) by about 1860. It was not until 1875, however, that Maxwell actually proved that a static theory was in conflict with experiment.