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Kelvins
In many situations we are only interested in changes of
temperature, so it doesnt really matter where the freezing point of
water is arbitrarily chosen to be. But in other cases, as we shall
see when we study gases, we will want to do things like double
the temperature, which is meaningless if the zero point of the
scale is arbitrary, as with the Celsius scale.
The Kelvin scale (K) is a measure of absolute temperature,
defined so that temperatures expressed in Kelvins are always
positive. Absolute zero, 0 K, which is equivalent to 273C, is
the lowest theoretical temperature a material can have. Other than
the placement of the zero point, the Kelvin and Celsius scales are
the same, so water freezes at 273 K and boils at 373 K.
Definition of Temperature
The temperature of a material is a measure of the average kinetic
energy of the molecules that make up that material. Absolute zero
is defined as the temperature at which the molecules have zero
kinetic energy, which is why it is impossible for anything to be
colder.
Solids are rigid because their molecules do not have enough
kinetic energy to go anywherethey just vibrate in place. The
molecules in a liquid have enough energy to move around one
anotherwhich is why liquids flowbut not enough to escape each
other. In a gas, the molecules have so much kinetic energy that
they disperse and the gas expands to fill its container.
Heat
Heat is a measure of how much thermal energy is transmitted from
one body to another. We cannot say a body has a certain amount
of heat any more than we can say a body has a certain amount
of work. While both work and heat can be measured in terms of
joules, they are not measures of energy but rather of energy
transfer. A hot water bottle has a certain amount of thermal
energy; when you cuddle up with a hot water bottle, it transmits a
certain amount of heat to your body.
Calories
Like work, heat can be measured in terms of joules, but it is
frequently measured in terms of calories (cal). Unlike joules,
calories relate heat to changes in temperature, making them a
more convenient unit of measurement for the kinds of thermal
physics problems you will encounter on SAT II Physics. Be
forewarned, however, that a question on thermal physics on SAT II
Physics may be expressed either in terms of calories or joules.
A calorie is defined as the amount of heat needed to raise the
temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius. One
calorie is equivalent to 4.19 J.
Youre probably most familiar with the word calorie in the context
of a foods nutritional content. However, food calories are not quite
the same as what were discussing here: they are actually Calories,
with a capital C, where 1 Calorie = 1000calories. Also, these
Calories are not a measure of thermal energy, but rather a
measure of the energy stored in the chemical bonds of food.
Specific Heat
Though heat and temperature are not the same thing, there is a
correlation between the two, captured in a quantity called specific
heat, c. Specific heat measures how much heat is required to raise
the temperature of a certain mass of a given substance. Specific
heat is measured in units of J/kg C or cal/g C. Every substance
has a different specific heat, but specific heat is a constant for that
substance.
For instance, the specific heat of water,
, is
J/kg
is the
is equal to the
EXAMP LE
10
Next, we need to know how much heat it takes to melt the ice into
water:
Last, we need to know how much heat it takes to warm the water
up to 10C.
Now we just add the three figures together to get our answer:
Note that far more heat was needed to melt the ice into liquid than
was needed to increase the temperature.
Thermal Expansion
You may have noticed in everyday life that substances can often
expand or contract with a change in temperature even if they
dont change phase. If you play a brass or metal woodwind
instrument, you have probably noticed that this size change
creates difficulties when youre trying to tune your instrumentthe
length of the horn, and thus its pitch, varies with the room