| Temperature is a
physical property of a
system that underlies the common notions of hot and cold;
something that is hotter generally has the greater temperature.
Temperature is one of the principal parameters of
thermodynamics. On the microscopic scale, temperature is defined
as simply the average energy of microscopic motions of a single
particle in the system per
degree of freedom. On the bulk scale, common to non-scientists,
temperature is defined as that unique physical property that is
shared between two otherwise entirely unlike things that happen to
be in thermal equilibrium with each other (meaning, no net heat
energy is exchanged between them). |