以微觀角度詮釋溫度

The following web-page gives a good account on the interpretation of "temperature".

http://eo.ucar.edu/skymath/tmp2.html

The microscopic interpretation of "temperature" is given in the section "The Kinetic Theory". It says : "Temperature becomes a quantity definable either in terms of macroscopic thermodynamic quantities such as heat and work, or, with equal validity and identical results, in terms of a quantity which characterized the energy distribution among the particles in a system."

In simple terms, microscopically, temperature cna b interpretated as the average energy possessed by particles in a system (e.g. a block of copper, a piece of wood, or a cup of water).

In gases, there is a simple relationship between the temperature T (in absolute scale) and the avergae kinetic energy of gas molecules, as given below:

<average kinetic energy of molecules> = (3/2)kT
where k is the Boltzmann constant.

That is, temperature T = (2/3k). <average kinetic energy of molecules>

The physicsl significance of which is that the higher the average kinetic energy of molecues, the higher the temperature the gas appears to be.