HEAT AND TEMPERATURE

Temperature
Temperature is the hotness or coldness of a substance. It is a measure of how much kinetic energy is
contained within the particles of an object. Temperature can be measured in degrees Celsius or in Kelvin.
Celsius is a temperature scale where water freezes at 0C and boils at 100C. Kelvin is a temperature scale
where 0 K is called absolute zero and is defined as the temperature at which it is so cold that all particle
vibration and movement stops, and it is impossible to get any colder; there are no negative numbers in the
Kelvin scale. Kelvin is offset from Celsius by -273 degrees, so 0 K is equivalent to -273C.
Heat
Heat is defined as the transfer of energy between two objects. Heat is not an innate property of an object; it is
only used to describe energy passing from one object to another. When particles from an object come into
contact with particles from another object, they hit each other when they vibrate, causing energy and heat to
be transferred between.
According to the second law of thermodynamics, heat can only be transferred from objects with a high
temperature to objects with a lower temperature, and never the other way around. The SI unit for heat is
Joules. One Joule is defined as the amount of energy it takes to apply a force of one Newton over one meter.

EXAMPLE:
Say you put an ice cube on top of a hot plate. The ice cube is cold while the hot plate is hot.
This tells you that the ice has a very low temperature and the hot plate has a very high
temperature.
Over
time,
because
there is a difference of temperature between the ice cube and the hot plate, energy, in the
form of heat, is transferred from the hot plate to the ice cube and will stop when they both are
the same temperature.