“A hot object has greater average kinetic energy but may not have greater total kinetic energy “

Question

“A hot object has greater average kinetic energy but may not have greater total kinetic energy “

In: 1

Answer 1

A cold bullet shot at your hand is going to damage your hand (more energy) than a sizzling hot bullet sitting on your palm.

I think the key is “greater average RELATIVE kinetic energy”. It’s kind of implicit because temperature has to do with how much relative motion is happening within the particles of an object. It doesn’t mean it has more total kinetic energy because the whole object can also be moving all together with a lot more kinetic energy.

The sentence as written can be mathematically confusing if you miss the implicit “relative”.