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Re: Temperature applied to small group of particles



I was under the impression that thermodynamic state variables only applied
to a large collection of particles.....ie at the extreme of one particle in
a box it is pointless talking about pressure ....at what point does
pressure become meaningful.

I understand how temperature of a system in direct contact with another
system has the same temp as that sytem through the zeroth law. But if
system 1 has very few particles 10 and sytem two has very many 10^9 I would
not like to say that the temperature of system1 gives us an idea of the
kinetic energy of a typical particle in the system. While in system2 I
would happily say that the temperature of the system tells us about the
likely speed of a molecule and hence the likely KI of a typical particle.

I think the point is that in the first case there are very much fewer
possible states that the system can be in that the states on the extremes
of the Boltsmann curve ar no longer negligible ie the bell is almost a
line. I want to know at what point this happens...or does it happen?

Thanks for the responses so far
Alex