primarily made up of diatomic gases (around 78% nitrogen, N2, and 21% oxygen, O2), and at standard conditions it can be considered to be an ideal gas. The above value of 1.4 is highly consistent with the measured adiabatic indices for dry air within a temperature range of 0–200 °C, exhibiting a deviation of only 0.2% (see tabulation above). For a linear triatomic molecule such as , there are only 5 degrees of freedom (3 translations and 2 rotations), assuming vibrational modes are not excited. However, as mass increases and the frequency of vibrational modes decreases, vibrational degrees of freedom start to enter into the equation at far lower temperatures than is typically the case for diatomic molecules. For example, it requires a far larger temperature to excite the single vibrational mode for , for which one quantum of vibration is a fairly large amount of energy, than for the bending or stretching vibrations of . For a non-linear triatomic gas, such as water vapor, which has 3 translational and 3 rotational degrees of freedom, this model predicts Real-gas relations As noted above, as temperature increases, higher-energy vibrational states become accessible to molecular gases, thus increasing the number of degrees of freedom and lowering . Conversely, as the temperature is lowered, rotational degrees of freedom may become unequally partitioned as well. As a result, both and increase with increasing temperature. Despite this, if the density is fairly low and intermolecular forces are negligible, the two heat capacities may still continue to differ from each other by a fixed constant (as above, ), which reflects the relatively constant difference in work done during expansion for constant pressure vs. constant volume conditions. Thus, the ratio of the two values, , decreases with increasing temperature. However, when the gas density is sufficiently high and intermolecular forces are important, thermodynamic expressions may sometimes be used to accurately describe the relationship between the two heat capacities, as explained below. Unfortunately the situation can become considerably more complex if the temperature is sufficiently high for molecules to dissociate or carry out other chemical reactions, in which case thermodynamic expressions arising from simple equations of state may not be adequate. Thermodynamic expressions Values based on approximations (particularly ) are in many cases not sufficiently accurate for practical engineering calculations, such as flow rates through pipes and valves at moderate to high pressures. An experimental value should be