“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

The thing that we call “heat” ultimately refers to the motion of the atoms in the object we’re talking about. A hot object’s atoms are moving around very fast and a colder objects are moving slower. Fish swimming around like crazy in a pond, you have a lot of motion going on, but it’s not like the pond is slowly inching into the next town.

Conversely if you fired a bullet from a gun, all the atoms in the bullet are moving together, with a specific motion and energy.

It’s confusing because both explanations involve motion, but one is a random motion, confined to a space, without any “bulk movement” of the object. The other refers to actual motion of the object itself across a room.