Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and beginning April 20th, 2021 (Eastern Time) the Yahoo Answers website will be in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.
Trending News
Is it OK and is there a formula relating the kinetic energy of a single molecule to its absolute temperature?
The temperature of a gas is related to its mean kinetic energy - I forget how - I wonder how few the number of molecules can be for this to hold up. This subject is thermodynamics but physicists might have a view.
2 Answers
- ?Lv 79 years agoFavorite Answer
A single molecule doesn't have a temperature in the normal thermodynamic sense, as I undertsand it. Temperature is a characteristic of a large number of particles.
For an ideal gas:
Average kinetic energy = (3/2)k x absolute temperature
where k is the Boltzmann constant.
The essence of statistical thermodynamics is that it considers macroscopic properties (temperature, pressure, entropy etc) arising from he statistical behaviour of a very large number of entities.
'How many' you ask? I don't know but it will it depends on what level of fluctuations you will accept in quantities like temperature; more than a few million particles is probably OK for most purposes.