text: Scottish chemist Thomas Graham (1805–1869) found experimentally that the rate of effusion of a gas is inversely proportional to the square root of the mass of its particles.  In other words, the ratio of the rates of effusion of two gases at the same temperature and pressure is given by the inverse ratio of the square roots of the masses of the gas particles.
  where  and  represent the molar masses of the gases. 
  This equation is known as Graham's law of effusion.
  The effusion rate for a gas depends directly on the average velocity of its particles. Thus, the faster the gas particles are moving, the more likely they are to pass through the effusion orifice.