In your own words define thermal equilibrium.( Be very careful of your use of th
ID: 250393 • Letter: I
Question
In your own words define thermal equilibrium.( Be very careful of your use of the word heat. It is perhaps the most abused word in our physics lexicon. To a physicist, heat has definition of energy in transit from a high temperature object to a low temperature object. A key part of the definition is the prepositional phrase in transit. Bodies do not posses heat, they do however posses internal energy. Internal energy is the random motion of the molecules and atoms. People typically mean internal energy when they the word heat. Notice that the correct definition of the word heat describes just one way to add energy to a body. We can increase the internal energy in other ways.) If a container of orange juice is not in thermal equilibrium with the air in the kitchen and a container of milk is in thermal equilibrium with the orange juice what can you say about the temperatures of the three thermal systems?Explanation / Answer
(a).
Thermal equilibrium is defined as the condition under which two substances in physical contact with each other exchange no heat energy.
Two substances in thermal equilibrium are said to be at the same temperature.
(b)
The juice is in thermal equilibrium with milk and milk with air. So the juice is also in thermal equilibrium with air with a medium milk between them. Air and jice is connected to each other through milk. So three are in equilibrium.