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° of energy..


Mareks J.

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So why can't I express the energy of a particle by its equivalent temperature ?

You can always use Boltzmann's constant to go between the units of energy and temperature. However, one would have to take care and it may not be possible to understand the 'temperature' as the temperature as understood in the kinetic theory of gases.

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MigL

Energy can be expressed as a temperature.

 

 

Sometimes yes but only indirectly.

 

Consider first my shed wall.

 

Today it is 300oK inside and outside the shed. The wall temperature is 300oK

Tonight the same wall, inside and outside temperatures will be 285oK.

The wall hasn't changed its KE or its PE but it has lost some heat content.

 

So in that sense the temperature is an indication (measure even) of the energy of the wall.

 

But consider a different wall separating a furnace at 3000oK from the outside at 300oK.

This wall contains cooling pipes and much coolant flows through these, carrying away energy and maintaining the wall temperature.

 

In this case the wall temperature is not a measure of energy and perhaps not even a good indicator.

The mass flow and difference in temperature between inlet and outlet of the coolant is however.

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So why can't I express the energy of a particle by its equivalent temperature ?

Its done all the time, in colliders as well as descriptions of the early universe.

Please elaborate Swansont.

 

A 1 kg ball moving with a speed of 1 m/s has half a Joule of translational KE. But it doesn't have a temperature based on that rolling. kT for that energy is about 10^22 K.

 

Temperature assumes an ensemble of particles that have reached a steady state and exhibit a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution of speeds. The description of colliders assumes that you had such an ensemble, because in the early universe you did.

You would need to assume you had billions of 1 kg balls, elastically colliding , with an average speed of 1 m/s to assign a temperature to that.

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