Standard atmosphere

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A standard atmosphere, abbreviated atm, is the unit of pressure equal to the average atmospheric pressure at sea level. Specifically 1 atm = 101,325 pascals,[1] which is the SI unit of pressure. When scientists refer to STP (standard temperature and pressure), this refers to a set of conditions for a system, one of which is a pressure of 1 atm.

This is an important unit for describing gasses, as pressure is one of the state variables that describe the gas in a heat engine.

Conversions



To read more about the atm, click here.

For further reading

References

  1. R. Serway and J. Jewett, "Pressure," in Physics for Scientists and Engineers, 8th ed., Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning, 2010, ch.14, sec.1, pp. 405