It's the physical property that indicates the degree/intensity of heat present in a substance or an object. It can be expressed and measured according to various scales.
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How long can you survive 1 million degrees?
I asked my Dad this once when I was about 14, and he said that no matter how short the amount of time you were exposed to such a great temperature, you would surely die. The conversation went ...
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Will a hole cut into a metal disk expand or shrink when the disc is heated?
Suppose you take a metal disc and cut a small, circular hole in the center.
When you heat the whole thing, will the hole's diameter increase or decrease? and why?
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Before a once-warm lake starts to freeze, must its temperature be 4°C throughout at some point?
This is a problem I just started puzzling over, and I felt this would be a good forum to check my reasoning. So here are the relevant observations followed by my question:
Water achieves its maximum ...
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Why is there no absolute maximum temperature?
If temperature makes particles vibrate faster, and movement is limited by the speed of light, then temperature must be limited as well I would assume. Why there is no limits?
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Why isn't temperature measured in Joules?
If we set the Boltzmann constant to $1$, then entropy would just be $\ln \Omega$, temperature would be measured in $\text{joules}$ ($\,\text{J}\,$), and average kinetic energy would be an integer ...
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What exactly is heat?
Is it energy?
Is it energy per unit volume?
Is it energy per unit time i.e power?
What is it?
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How can it be that the beginning universe had a high temperature and a low entropy at the same time?
The Big Bang theory assumes that our universe started from a very/infinitely dense and extremely/infinitely hot state. But on the other side, it is often claimed that our universe must have been ...
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Prove that negative absolute temperatures are actually hotter than positive absolute temperatures
Could someone provide me with a mathematical proof of why, a system with an absolute negative Kelvin temperature (such that of a spin system) is hotter than any system with a positive temperature (in ...
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Why does the air we blow/exhale out from our mouths change from hot to cold depending on the size of the opening we make with our mouth?
Why does the air we blow/exhale out from our mouths change from hot to cold depending on the size of the opening we make with our mouth?
It's not just a subtle difference, but significant in my ...
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Does sound propagate further in freezing weather?
A few days ago I went for a walk in the evening. We're having winter with a little snow and freezing temperatures. We're in a quiet, shallow valley with a train station about 1km from us. I heard a ...
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Significance of letters in Hertzsprung-Russell (H-R) diagram
The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram that categorizes star types uses the letter codes O, B, A, F, G, K, and M to indicate a star's temperature/color. Hottest (blue) is O and coolest (red) is M.
What do ...
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273 + degree Celsius = Kelvin. Why 273?
Temperature conversion:
273 + degree Celsius = Kelvin
Actually why is that 273? How does one come up with this?
My teacher mentioned Gann's law (not sure if this is the one) but I couldn't find ...
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Could temperature have been defined as $-\partial S/\partial U$?
When coming up with a definition of temperature, it's typical to start with an empirical definition that a system with a hotter temperature tends to lose heat to a system with a colder temperature. ...
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Why does a thermometer in wind not show a lower temperature than one shielded from it?
I'm a little familiar with the physics and thermodynamics of the wind chill effect, but this question seems to come up from time to time:
Why, given two temperature sensors or thermometers in the ...
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4answers
782 views
Why doesn't air freeze?
I am in no way experienced in the Physics field so this question may seem a bit silly but i'd appreciate an answer :)
Why doesn't air freeze?
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2answers
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Do you pay more for gas when the day is warmer?
Found this at the gas station yesteday - got me thinking...
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5answers
858 views
How do we perceive hotness or coldness of an object?
Some objects, especially metallic ones, feel cold on touching and others like wood, etc. feel warm on touching. Both are exposed to same environment and are in their stable state, so some kind of ...
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Does tea stay hotter with the milk in it?
A little thought experiment, similar to this one: Imagine you are making a cup of tea when the door bell rings. You've poured the boiling water into a cup with a teabag in it. As you're just about to ...
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1answer
614 views
What’s the relationship between thermal radiation and Johnson thermal noise?
All objects above absolute zero emit radiation due to random collisions between the atoms they are made of. The spectrum of radiation emitted varies according to the temperature of the object, I ...
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1answer
194 views
Melting point, is it determined only experimentally?
I am interested in the underlying physics of the concept of a melting point, a temperature at which an object tends to gain enough energy to break the bonds that hold it together and be in a liquid ...
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4answers
978 views
Should I heat my room when I'm not here, energy-efficiently speaking?
I was wondering as it's getting cold : is it better for my electricity bill to shut down completely my (electric) heater during day, and to turn it on again when I come home (then it will have to heat ...
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6answers
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How is gradient the maximum rate of change of a function?
Recently I read a book which described about gradient. It says
$${\rm d}T~=~ \nabla T \cdot {\rm d}{\bf r},$$
and suddenly they concluded that $\nabla T$ is the maximum rate of change of $f(T)$ ...
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4answers
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Why less temperature at high altitude
Why there is always cold at high altitudes. e.g. at peak of mountains. Also as we go high from see level, temperature starts decreasing, so why is it.
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6answers
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Is it theoretically possible to reach 0 kelvin?
I'm having a discussion with someone.
I said that it is -even theoretically- impossible to reach 0K, because that would imply that all molecules in the substance would stand perfectly still.
He said ...
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4answers
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Light emitted by an object according to its temperature
According to this picture
the light emitted by an object depends on its temperature.
That makes perfect sense when we heat a metal. As its temperature raises we see it red at first, then orange, ...
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3answers
444 views
Can temperature be defined as propensity to transmit thermal energy?
I was recently surprised to learn that defining temperature isn't easy. For a long time, it was defined operationally: how much does a thermometer expand. Also surprising, temperature isn't a ...
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4answers
139 views
Can a single molecule have a temperature?
A show on the weather channel said that as a water molecule ascends in the atmosphere it cools. Does it make sense to talk about the temperature of a single molecule?
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2answers
313 views
The analogy between temperature and imaginary time
There are many statements about the relation between time and temperature in statistical physics and quantum field theory, the basic idea is to interpret (inverse) temperature in statistics as "time" ...
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4answers
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Is there an equation for convective heat transfer?
Is there an equation I can use to calculate the temperature (as a function of time) of an object which is gaining or losing heat by convection? Or equivalently, the rate of energy transfer from the ...
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2answers
94 views
Why is the gas halo of the Milky Way so hot?
I have read on the webpage of NASA that there is a massive hot gas halo around our galaxy. Its temperature is between 100,000 and 1 million Kelvins or more. I do not understand why is it so hot. The ...
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2answers
370 views
Temperature below absolute zero?
I saw this Nature article today, which cites e.g. arXiv:1211.0545.
And it makes no sense to me. The temperature of a collection of particles is the average kinetic energy of those particles. Kinetic ...
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1answer
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Reflectivity of a glowing-hot metal surface
When a polished piece of metal (or steel in particular) is heated to incandescence, how do its reflective properties change?
Given a mirror-like surface, would the object temporarily cease to act ...
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1answer
102 views
Which came first, movement or heat?
According to my measly understanding of the universe, when particles hit one another, some of their kinetic energy is transformed into heat. But when we heat particles (for instance, putting a bucket ...
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Is temperature in vacuum zero?
From Wikipedia entry on Kinetic Theory
The temperature of an ideal monatomic gas is a measure of the average kinetic energy of its atoms.
Now if I remove all the particles from the box shown ...
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Why can $\beta$ not be linearly proportional to $T$, that is $\beta = constant \times T$?
$\beta$ in statistical mechanics is equal to $\frac{1}{k_BT}$ in in thermodynamics, but I do not understand why $\beta\propto T^{-1}$ instead of, say, $\beta\propto T$?
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Understanding Heat
Heat or thermal energy as understood is nothing but motion of molecules of the matter. If the molecules are tightly bound (in case of solids), it is to-and-fro molecular vibrations, otherwise it is ...
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2answers
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Is the proper interpretation of temperature missing in this book?
In Randall T. Knight’s textbook “Physics for Scientists and Engineers” in the first chapter on thermodynamics (Ch. 16: A Macroscopic Description of Matter) one of the first conceptual questions is ...
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The difference between heat and temperature
So as I understand it, heat energy of an object is the SUM of all the kinetic
energies of the molecules of the object (upto constant factor).
The temperature on the other hand is the AVERAGE of the ...
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1answer
494 views
The speed of sound is proportional to the square root of absolute temperature. What happens at extremely high temperatures?
The speed cannot increase unboundedly of course, so what happens?
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How to understand temperatures of different degrees of freedom?
So I'm reading this book, where after the preface and before the models there is a section called General Notions and Essential Quantities, which introduce some things I don't understand. They regard ...
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what cools bottle of water faster: ice or snow
Imagine you have a pile of snow and a pile of ice shards. You put a soda bottle which has a room temperature into both piles. Which bottle is going to cool down faster?
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1answer
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Does the Kelvin have a rigorous definition?
From Wikipedia:
The kelvin is defined as the fraction 1⁄273.16 of the thermodynamic temperature of the triple point of water.
That presupposes that we can take a fraction of temperature.
Now, ...
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3answers
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Is temperature an extensive property, like density?
I was thinking about it some time ago, and now that I've discovered this site I would like to ask it here because I couldn't work it out then.
I know that the higher temperature the air in my room ...
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2answers
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If you stop water from expanding, will its temperature stop rising?
Water expands when it heats up. If you heat water in a container that prevents it from expanding, will its temperature top out -- maybe around the boiling point?
And if not, will it still turn to ...
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3answers
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How can I calculate Vapor Pressure Deficit from Temperature and Relative Humidity?
I have a series of measurements of temperature and relative humidity (RH), together with mosquito capture data. Because mosquitoes are sensitive to desiccation, it's reasonable that RH may be useful ...
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2answers
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Why do frozen objects have a higher propensity to snap/break cleanly than non-frozen/warmer ones?
Why do frozen objects have a higher propensity to snap/break cleanly than non-frozen/warmer ones?
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2answers
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How hot would space feel?
I read that the temperature of the space around the earth can vary greatly depending on whether or not it is in direct sunlight. Space, however, is not very dense, so I imagine that heat would not ...
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2answers
390 views
Glass melting at near absolute zero?
I read this report and summarise here but my question is - if quantum mechanics will make glass melt at temperatures near absolute zero and it is near absolute zero then wouldn't this be a huge issue ...
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1answer
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Ideal gas and diatomic gas with same temperature
If a box of ideal gas and another box of diatomic gas are in thermal equilibrium,
does it mean that the average translational energy of ideal gas particle (A) is the same as that of diatomic gas ...
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1answer
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Where does the heat flow in the Earth's crust switch from primarily solar to geothermal?
Ok, maybe more of a geology question than physics, but maybe somebody has been involved in modeling these heat flows?
Essentially I'm asking if we know what sort of depth the heat source becomes ...
