What is temperature? What makes heat travel?

What is temperature?

The temperature is proportional to the average "translational" kinetic energy of molecular motion. In an atomic solid, or liquid, the atoms are still undergoing translational motion. It is hindered: they don't move in a straight line over any significant distance, but it still counts as translation. We can think of the motions in a solid as being vibrational in character (composed of phonons), but the atoms are still translating back and forth. If the solid is composed of molecules, they will also be rotating and will have internal vibrational degrees of freedom: however, these cannot be completely separated from the translational motion of the molecular centres of mass.?

Rotational and vibrational kinetic energy don't directly affect temperature.

Point to note that, one of the three atomic motions in a molecule is translational kinetic energy. Vibrational and rotational motions make up the other two. When a molecule is heated, vibrational and rotational motions both receive an equal amount of heat. These three motions share the same amount of heat. But temperature is associated with only translational kinetic energy – linear motion of atoms. A molecule's need for heat to fuel its atomic motions, known as specific heat, it depends on the number of atoms in the molecule.

Temperature is the internal energy of an ideal gas molecule

In an ideal gas, there is no force of attraction between molecules, Hence, the internal energy is just kinetic energy which depends on the temperature only. Average kinetic energy per molecule, KE = 3/2 KBT, where KB is the Boltzmann constant and T is the temperature in Kelvin. The factor (3/2) arises from statistical mechanics.

Explanation

The internal energy is associated with the internal degrees of freedom of the system. For an ideal gas, the internal energy is only a function of the gas temperature and is a measure of the mean translational kinetic energy of the gas atoms. These atoms have three translational degrees of freedom, each of which has a mean translational kinetic energy of 1/2kBT, where kB is Boltzman's constant = 1.381 x 10 ^-23 J/ K.

What makes heat travel?

Heat is thought to move from high to low temperatures. Q mCpdt. It seems overly simplistic to me. Only when mCp is constant is Q capable of being proportional to dt. When the earth receives solar energy, it disperses the thermal energy unevenly in the direction of a particular heat of the substance that can pull the strongest. You can conduct a simple experiment right away in your home. Simply open the refrigerator door and check the temperature of some of the contents on the same dish. You'll discover that they are distinct. Even though the source of the heat is the same, they are at different temperatures.

Explanation

The specific heat capacity (mCp) of different items can play a role in the temperature variations within a refrigerator. Specific heat capacity is the amount of heat energy required to raise the temperature of a given amount of a substance by a certain degree. Items with a higher specific heat capacity require more energy to heat up, so they may take longer to cool down inside the refrigerator. On the other hand, items with a lower specific heat capacity can cool down more quickly. Therefore, even if the available heat is the same for all items, those with different specific heat capacities will reach different temperatures due to differences in the amount of energy they absorb and retain.

What does it mean?

Heat travels in the direction of specific heat capacity (mCp) rather than just temperature. The specific heat capacity of a substance determines how much heat energy it can absorb or release for a given change in temperature. So, when heat is transferred between different items in a refrigerator, it follows the path of the substance with a higher mCp. This means that the temperature of items with higher mCp may change more slowly compared to items with lower mCp, even if they are exposed to the same amount of heat.

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