What is the Temperature Inside a Single Atom ?
Most recent answer: 09/15/2011
Q:
1/ what is the temperature inside a single atom ?
2/One day I was thinking a lot and wrote this:
In the world of logic every illogicall action is logical. and, in the illogical world every logical action is illogical !!!
The answer is "Does it make sense"Or"not"
- yassin (age 16)
Maroc
- yassin (age 16)
Maroc
A:
I have little to say on your second question, but the first one is interesting. Temperature generally isn't defined on small systems.There's a couple meanings of temperature. One is that it describes the probability of the system being in states of different energy. If a system has a temperature, the probability of being in a state depends on the energy E of the state proportional to e^(-E/kT) where k is Boltzmann's constant and T is the absolute temperature. What if the probabilities don't follow that particular pattern? Then the system doesn't have a definite temperature. Usually an individual atom doesn't have a definite temperature.
A more basic definition of temperature is that it's the derivative of energy U with respect to entropy S: T=dU/dS, in thermal equilibrium. Usually this definition doesn't even make sense except for a big system with lots of parts.
Mike W.
A more basic definition of temperature is that it's the derivative of energy U with respect to entropy S: T=dU/dS, in thermal equilibrium. Usually this definition doesn't even make sense except for a big system with lots of parts.
Mike W.
(published on 09/15/2011)
Follow-Up #1: The temperature of an atom?
Q:
But if we can live inside the atom (....)( then the atom will be a big systeme......... ). So, it might be possible to know its temperature .
Temperature is relative ? or there is a third definition of temperature ?????????????
- Yassin (age 16)
Maroc
- Yassin (age 16)
Maroc
A:
Very interesting question.
You wonder about "if we can live inside the atom"? Of course, we can't. Is that just a practical limitation? No: size scales are actually absolute, not just relative. Galileo made that point with very effective arguments in his Dialog on Two New Sciences. He showed why elephant-sized animals can't be shaped like ants. From a modern point of view, the explanation ends up involving the idea that we're made out of atomic building blocks with a particular size.
An atom really does have a small number of moving parts. Given what our particular universe is made of, there simply aren't parts available to put a lot of different things in that space without having an enormous amount of energy available. Now in the very early universe things were so hot that many different particles were around that could fit in the space of what would now be an atom. So it makes sense to talk about the temperature on the scale of an atom at that point in the story. However, the temperature then was so high that atoms themselves couldn't form- their parts would all shake loose.
Temperature actually is not particularly relative. We assume it's measured in the local reference frame in which the stuff is on average at rest. If you look from a remotely centered reference frame, General Relativistic effects can change the energy scale, but I think that's not what you meant.
Mike W.
You wonder about "if we can live inside the atom"? Of course, we can't. Is that just a practical limitation? No: size scales are actually absolute, not just relative. Galileo made that point with very effective arguments in his Dialog on Two New Sciences. He showed why elephant-sized animals can't be shaped like ants. From a modern point of view, the explanation ends up involving the idea that we're made out of atomic building blocks with a particular size.
An atom really does have a small number of moving parts. Given what our particular universe is made of, there simply aren't parts available to put a lot of different things in that space without having an enormous amount of energy available. Now in the very early universe things were so hot that many different particles were around that could fit in the space of what would now be an atom. So it makes sense to talk about the temperature on the scale of an atom at that point in the story. However, the temperature then was so high that atoms themselves couldn't form- their parts would all shake loose.
Temperature actually is not particularly relative. We assume it's measured in the local reference frame in which the stuff is on average at rest. If you look from a remotely centered reference frame, General Relativistic effects can change the energy scale, but I think that's not what you meant.
Mike W.
(published on 09/17/2011)