“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

Take two objects.

One is hot, and contains a billion particles bouncing around inside it. The average particle will have a higher kinetic energy, which we will call X.

However, the second object, while cold, contains 10 billion particles. Because they are colder, their average kinetic energy is 1/2 X.

The total kinetic energy is the number of particles times the average kinetic energy. The first would have 1,000,000,000 X (1,000,000,000 times X. The second would have 5,000,000,000 x (10,000,000,000 times 1/2 X).