Heat energy versus temperature - examples?

Question

Can someone give me some good examples of the difference between heat energy and temperature?

I know that heat energy is the total kinetic energy of all the atoms in a substance and that temperature is a measure of the average kinetic energy of all the atoms in a body, but I would like to have a few different examples of this to better understand it.

Answer 1

The terms "qualitative" and "quantitative" sum it all up, if those help you any. Heat energy is quantitative. Temperature is qualitative. Example, the temperature of an arc welding arc is FAR greater than a bonfire. This is an intrinsic quality of each. But the bonfire makes much more heat. That is a quantity, in this case, largely related to the size of the energy source. This will have a major effect on the total output.

Answer 2

TEMPERATURE measurement is usually rather precisely defined in terms of certain measurable physical attributes, where you presuppose that the measuring gadget doesn't affect the temp being measured.

HEAT on the other hand is defined in terms of the amount of energy to raise a measured quantity of substance 1 degree of temperature. I personally think of heat is being a much more difficult thing to measure.

Tho a lit match may reach 800 degrees F, it doesn't have the heat energy to melt an ice cube. Tap water on the other hand or even room air has more than enough heat energy to melt the cube, and rather quickly, but both are rarely 80 F.

The burning gas of a Bunsen burner can reach very high temperatures in certain regions of the flame, but it's possible to insert a match into the base of the flame (suspend it with the match head in the flame, just above the barrel, using a pin) and yet the flame won't ignite the match.

Hope this is helpful.

Answer 3

The difference is very obvious when you look at a system where a phase change is happening. The most common example is boiling water. The water stays at the boiling point even though there is heat energy being added. This is because the heat energy is going into the latent heat of evaporation, the heat required to change liquid water to steam. Another example is freezing water and ice. Even though heat energy is leaving, there temperature stays the same as long as there is a mixture of liquid and solid water. This is due to the latent heat of melting/freezing. I hope this helps.