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Re: Re Thermal Energy



Robert B Zannelli wrote:

True or False
The kinetic energy of an object has no effect on its
thermal energy. Example: A golf ball at 20 degrees
Celsius has the same thermal energy sitting on the tee or
speeding through the air.

True.

Given that thermal energy is defined as the potential and kinetic associated
with RANDOM microscopic motion of the atoms of a substance the answer to this
question is true. It certainly isn't possible to increase the total kinetic
energy of an object without increasing the kinetic energy of it's parts
(which is what prompts this question perhaps). but by defining thermal energy
as a function of random motion this additional kinetic energy is excluded.

Exactly so.

Perhaps another question worth asking is since the temperature of ,say an
ideal gas, is proportional to the average kinetic energy of it's components

T= KE_ave/((3/2)*K where K is Boltzmann's constant
does the ball's increased kinetic energy cause it's temperature to increase.

But that formula isn't right. That formula wrongly includes
nonthermal energy. Hint: There is such a thing as a
Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution, which differs from the
plain old Boltzmann distribution by a uniform shift in velocity.