The Difference between heat and temperature

pablohoney87 · 17-01-2019 2:43pm #1

I am putting together some lesson plans for work in order for our employees to explain better to clients regarding the importance of water to heating and cooling on site.

The basic principles will be that a large body of water (for theory sake we'll the mass of the body of water tends to infinity) will cool a 1kg body of Iron until the temperature of both materials are equal. But taking a 1kg body of water at that equal temperature will contain much more heat energy than that 1kg body or Iron.

When explaining this to an average person or a child, is there a simple way to explain this difference between heat and temperature or will I have to get into the detail of internal energies and heat balances?

blackbox · 17-01-2019 2:52pm

pablohoney87 wrote: »

I am putting together some lesson plans for work in order for our employees to explain better to clients regarding the importance of water to heating and cooling on site.

The basic principles will be that a large body of water (for theory sake we'll the mass of the body of water tends to infinity) will cool a 1kg body of Iron until the temperature of both materials are equal. But taking a 1kg body of water at that equal temperature will contain much more heat energy than that 1kg body or Iron.

When explaining this to an average person or a child, is there a simple way to explain this difference between heat and temperature or will I have to get into the detail of internal energies and heat balances?

Imagine a metal bucket and an eggcup, both full of water at room temperature. Light a candle under each. After five minutes, they will both have received pretty much the same heat/energy, but the eggcup will be at a much higher temperature.

pablohoney87 · 17-01-2019 4:48pm

blackbox wrote: »

Imagine a metal bucket and an eggcup, both full of water at room temperature. Light a candle under each. After five minutes, they will both have received pretty much the same heat/energy, but the eggcup will be at a much higher temperature.

Thats simlar to the example I would usually have used but confusion arises quite often when discussing heat transfer in between 2 fixed bodies. How the temperature will balance through heat transfer, but there will still be a large difference in the heat energy present in the 2 bodies.

blackbox · 18-01-2019 6:24pm

pablohoney87 wrote: »

Thats simlar to the example I would usually have used but confusion arises quite often when discussing heat transfer in between 2 fixed bodies. How the temperature will balance through heat transfer, but there will still be a large difference in the heat energy present in the 2 bodies.

Well, you could say that they both start out at absolute zero. After adding the same heat/energy to both they will be at different temperatures but there will the same heat energy present in each. Unfortunately,absolute zero can be hard for people to contemplate.

The Difference between heat and temperature

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