ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

François-Marie Raoult

Francois-Marie Raoult was a big scientist who was really interested in how things work together, especially when it comes to chemicals which are tiny little things we can't see.

He discovered something really important called Raoult's law. This law explains how the vapor (or gas) pressure of a liquid is affected by the other chemicals that are mixed in with it.

When you have a liquid, some of the particles on the top are always trying to escape and become a gas. The more particles in the gas form, the higher the vapor pressure of the liquid becomes. This is where Raoult's law comes in.

Raoult's law says that the vapor pressure of a liquid is directly proportional to the mole fraction of the solute (or the other chemicals mixed in with it). So, basically, the more moles of other stuff you mix with the liquid, the more pressure the gas on top will have.

This might sound kind of complicated, but the important thing to remember is that Francois-Marie Raoult was a really smart scientist who figured out how liquids behave when other things are mixed in with them.