Heat and Temperature

      Heat 🥵 and Temperature 🌡️

What is heat?

What is Temperature?

What is thermal energy?

What is the relationship between heat and temperature?

These questions are quite interesting when you encounter the so called thermodynamics. So I am here to give you feel and better logical understanding of this topic.

Heat: 

"Heat is energy in transit"

This is perhaps the best definition of heat.

Let's understand the meaning of the word "transit"  ; transit means the act of being moved or carried from one place to another under ongoing physical process.

It's actually the difference in temperature at two different points due to which the heat energy is said to exist there. 

The heat energy is neither present in cold part nor in hot part, it is present in between them i.e., the energy that is being transferred from hot part to cold part,is the heat energy. Thus,heat is energy in transit. 

Why is heat a form of energy? You know that,to boil water ,we put it in vessel on the gas cylinder and then lit it. The burning gas provides energy to boil the water . This energy is due to the temperature difference and therefore it is said to be heat energy. Please note that the temperature difference arises because the burning gas and the water( flame is at higher temperature than that of water).

Heat exists only in the state of temperature difference. An analogy to understand this in more detail is that of water in a river. The flow of water is possible only when there is difference of heights (or pressure) and when the same water is in pond ,it doesn't flow at all. The flow of water is equivalent to heat in flow of energy due to temperature difference.

"No temperature difference means no heat".

Thermal energy:

First of all it's pretty important to understand the heat which I have explained above. Now we move on to a very simple topic of thermal energy.

You know the energy associated with the motion of a body is the kinetic energy and so the fatser it moves,the more kinetic energy it has. Let's take an example of boiling water. Due to high temperature of the boiling water its molecules have large kinetic energy (H2O molecules are actually chemically bonded with each other and therefore they just tend to vibrate or move about their mean position), the kinetic energy (due to motion of molecules) and vibrational energy (due to motion under chemical bonds) constitute the so called thermal energy.

In other words, thermal energy is simply the energy of particles due to motion that arises from the temperature of the body. 

A hotter body has more thermal energy than that of colder body because the hotter body has more temperature and more temperature means its particles move at a faster rate which imply large thermal energy, and the less temperature means slow motion of particles, implying less thermal energy in colder body.

Here is one of the best example to understand the thermal energy:)

When you rub your palms, they become hotter which means the temperature of your palms are increased and this increase in temperature causes your palms to have large thermal energy. But why? This is because the atoms and molecules that make up your hands ,are start to move at a faster rate due to rise in temperature and thus you feel hot when you rub your palms.

I hope you have understood both thermal energy and the heat.

Now comes another last interesting topic the so called temperature:)

Temperature:

Almost everyone has heard of the word temperature. If you are a science enthusiast or a scientifically inclined person then it's quite important to know about the temperature.

Definition: Temperature is a measure of the average kinetic energy of molecules.

This is one of the standard definitions of temprature which i think is not so easy to grasp for normal persons. So lemme explain you in an easy way.

First of all you must understand the concept of thermal energy which I have explained above. Remember: temperature is directly related to the thermal energy,

the more the thermal energy is,the higher the temperature. In other words, the faster motion of particles imply higher temperature and the slower motion of particles imply less temperature.  When you rub your palms,you actually increase the motion of particles in your hands and this causes increase in temperature of your hand. Got it? I think you now understand the temperature very well.

Let's take an interesting example:)

Why is the sun so hot?

Answer: The atoms and ions of the sun move at a faster rate (higher speeds) and this causes higher temperature of the sun.

You are always welcome to suggest some corrections in my articles. 

Thank you 😊

Author: Scientificirfan