Yes, temperature is a measure of how much random jiggling there is of the little parts of things, such as atoms and molecules. In other words, it’s a measure of how much energy a typical little part has in the form of those random motions. Of course there’s a far more precise and general definition, but at least that should be ok for starters.
Heat is a measure of how much energy flows from one object to another because of their different temperatures. No matter what the objects are made of or what their sizes are, heat will flow from the hotter (higher temperature) one to the cooler one, unless work is done (as in a refrigerator).
Notice that for big objects, the total amount of thermal energy flowing around is bigger than for small objects. On the other hand, the temperature of a little piece of a uniform object is the same as the temperature of the whole thing.
Sometimes people use ’heat’ to mean the total amount of random (thermal) energy in some object. However, that definition is not the standard one and can lead to confusion in some cases.
Mike W.
(published on 10/22/2007)
