Talk:Thermal energy

Is 'Thermal Energy' Pseudo-Science?
I'm not saying I'm an expert, and I'm not here trying to squash free thought or expression, but my substantial background in thermodynamics provides me some perspective in the supposed field of this article. My perspective is that while I have seen one US High school text present a concept of "thermal energy" when teaching elementary concepts of kinetic theory of ideal gases, and I offer no opinion as to the doubtful pedagogical merits of such use, and I may possibly have used this term inappropriately at a cocktail party once, and if so I'm truly sorry, yet beyond that I am not aware of scientific authority which articulates or advocates the generalizations and definitions offered in this article. Thermodynamics is generally regarded by Physicists and Chemists as falling into the philosophical realm of a "science" which concerns itself with HEAT, with WORK, with TEMPERATURE and ENTROPY, with PRESSURE and VOLUME, it conventionally defines ENTHALPY (H), GIBBS FREE ENERGY (G), HELMHOLTZ ENERGY (F),  and INTERNAL ENERGY (E) but nowhere do I find anywhere, including the Britannica article cited, an authoritative exposition or definition of "THERMAL ENERGY". The author may have (incorrectly) confabulated with INTERNAL ENERGY which, for an ideal gas has the properties s/he states, but for no real substance. I am aware of several prior editing wars related to this "thermal energy" concept in other articles, and have seen it persistently inserted into fundamental definitions in the Wikipedia. I've made no modifications here and I'm NOT starting an editing war here, but my technical opinion is this article should provide other authoritative references (which I doubt can be found), or should be greatly revised and reviewed by a technical expert having a PhD in the field or by a PhD teaching upper division thermodynamics in Physics, Chemistry, or Engineering. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.191.132.120 (talk) 00:55, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Question
So the difference between kinetic energy on a atomic/subatomic/elementary/quantum level and thermal energy is.....?
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kinetic_energy#Heat_is_not_kinetic_energy This expert-looking person says that thermal energy is a combination of potential and kinetic energy.--Myncknm 00:23, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

The Description section is inaccurate in many ways: It should be rewritten. Warning added to article. --Tromer 01:27, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Thermal energy is definitely not "quantified via temperature", and is quite different from the quality of being "hot".
 * The first law of thermodynamics doesn't say what is claimed (under the common usage of "energy loss").
 * The second law is phrased in a meaningless way.
 * The talk about the "quality of energy" is quite strange indeed; and what is meant by "its original form"?

It appears that this is mostly a web page about thermal energy phrased entirely in neologisms, using newly invented English terms instead of the traditional Greek and Latin; indeed there's a change comment on the Thermal energy page saying, "moved Thermal energy to Warmal inwork: English term instaed of Greek", although I can't find earlier versions of the thermal energy page in the history. As such it's amusing to read, and it seems at least mostly correct, but it would probably be more useful if phrased in the traditional words, so that its readers could communicate with people using the traditional terms. Kragen Sitaker 02:08, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
 * This was a joke (or trolling). Reverted. mikka (t) 22:26, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

"Description" section
The Description section is not just inaccurate, it is absolutely awful. It should be rewritten completely. Thermal energy is NOT quantified by temperature; "infrared radiation often linked to thermal energy" is a very vague phrase; the discussion of oscillators and their relation to thermal energy is unclear; the second law of thermodynamics is stated in a very curious and not very useful form ("thermal energy is special among the types of energy" is unphysical and vague, and "heat is a form of energy of lower quality" is completely meaningless). In short, this section needs to be completely rewritten, preferably by a physicist. 131.111.8.96 05:13, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
 * i didn't write the section and would welcome you to rewrite it. about it, i thought two things were true: the capacity per particle of thermal energy (per degree of freedom) is proportional to absolute temperature (with the Boltzmann constant k as the constant of proportionality).  also, at least in engineering thermodynamics books, calling heat a "low grade energy" in comparison to non-random mechanical or electrical energy is common because to convert this "low grade" energy to a high grade energy, a heat engine is used and their cannot be 100% efficient.  but to convert electical or mechanical energy into heat is always 100% efficient. r b-j 01:37, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately I am not enough of an expert in this area; a real physicist would do a better job. It is true of course that you cannot convert thermal energy to non-random mechanical or electric energy with 100% efficiency, but I have never seen thermal energy described as being "of lower quality": the idea of energies having "low or high qualities" (i.e. being "better" or "worse") is not very physical. 131.111.8.96 17:50, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Thermal energy is not heat. It is the energy of the particles in an object. The temperature of an object is just the average amount of energy per particle but thermal energy is the total amount of energy in something.


 * Heat is the transfer of thermal energy from an object of lower temperature to something of a higher temp. Thermal energy is the total energy of an object. That is, the kinetic energy + the potential energy. Temperature is the average kinetic energy of an object.

MYT 03:52, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I've fixed some of the errors in the article. With part about the laws of thermodynamics, I just cut that out completely and added a link to its main article at the end. They are really not necessary and not that relevant to the subject. I could say that about much of the rest too. Well, the thing's better than before, and that's all that I claim. --myncknm 05:47, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't really agree with some of the definitions I've read above. Here's what I know about the subject:
 * Thermal energy is the random part of the kinetic energy. If a steel ball is thrown in a given direction, its overall motion in that direction does not contribute to its thermal energy; The random movements of its particles does.
 * Heat is the transfer of thermal energy. According to the second law, it can only happen spontaneously from a system of higher temperature to a system of lower temperature.
 * Temperature is proportional (via half boltzmann's constant; not equal) to the average thermal energy per particle per degree of freedom.
 * I hope this clears up some of the confusion. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 08:56, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Restart of page
Hmm, the page seems to have been blanked and restarted. Good? I think it was. There was a lot of irrelevancy and badness in there before. --myncknm 01:41, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Thermal Energy Definition
I have looked at many topics about thermal energy and have found no definition. It is energy caused by heat —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Axiomwheeler (talk • contribs) 04:07, 12 February 2007 (UTC).

Rewrite
I completely rewrote and condensed this (also removed the picture that had little to do with 'thermal energy'); the old version was poorly written and quite redundant. If anyone wants to expand it, they should start from my text. The way, the truth, and the light 07:50, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposed merger
The first line of this page begins, 'Thermal energy or thermodynamic energy, often called heat...'. Shouldn't 'thermal energy' and 'heat' have the same page, then? I am not a physicist, but based on my understanding I don't see the need for separate articles on these subjects. Since heat is a far higher quality article than this one, I suggest merging 'thermal energy' into that page. Terraxos 05:51, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
 * If I remember right, they are not the same; the intro is referring to the common misconception that they are. Thermal energy is the energy possessed by something with a certain temperature, while heat is somehow related to the transfer of thermal energy from one object to another.  Nyttend 05:56, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I have performed a complex edit on these articles, please see the discussion at Talk:Heat (disambiguation). The way, the truth, and the light 20:42, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

This page should be deleted rather than merged- I can't see any new material here. Thermal energy has a meaning but not one that is different from internal energy (I don't know what whoever wrote this thinks is the internal energy of an object at absolute zero). Heat transfer is the mechanism of energy transfer between objects of different temperatures. Most of this article is about heat transfer, not thermal energy. MAG1 22:34, 18 June 2007 (UTC)


 * So we should merge this with Internal energy instead? I hadn't seen that article before but it looks like a good idea. We can't just delete this article - besides the useful title it has the history section which isn't found elsewhere. I'll add more tags. The way, the truth, and the light 23:18, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I think we should keep these pages separate. I'll try to elucidate the differences when I have a chance in a couple weeks. In the meantime I think there should be no deletions or mergers. Scott.medling 22:49, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the three should be merged, as the differences are subtle enough to explain all in the same place. This is the way they are introduced in textbooks, too. See Talk:Heat. — Omegatron 23:44, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I realize this is an oudated discussion, but I need to point out something for the benefit of anyone reviewing it. Thermal energy and internal energy are not the same thing. Thermal energy is defined as energy from molecular motion, whereas internal energy is all the energy inside a system and thus also includes chemical bond energy and so on (ie $$ U = U_{thermal} + U_{chemical} + U_{nuclear} + ... $$ ). Having said that, here's where the confusion arises. Some disciplines might omit from their definitions those components of internal energy which are not relevant to them. This is because when we work with internal energy, we're only interested in how it changed (or could change). Any component which does not change will not affect our calculations and can essentially be ignored. For example, mechanical engineers and non-nuclear physicists can totally ignore the chemcial and nuclear energy in their systems. This energy will never be accessible to them so it is as if it is not even there. (This may be why some in this discussion have argued that $$ U = U_{thermal} $$ ; if their only training is in mechanics, then they may not have seen it defined any other way!) But a chemist knows there's also chemical energy inside a system. And a nuclear physicist knows that there's nuclear energy in it. Since Wikipedia is for all disciplines, we need to keep in mind that internal energy actually includes much more than just thermal energy. Riick (talk) 16:28, 23 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Good point Riick. I have not seen it explained that way before, but your explanation makes sense.  Could you write a paragraph for Internal energy, perhaps titled Thermal energy explaining the things you have explained above?  Dolphin  ( t ) 22:55, 23 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I recommend taking the discussion to to keep it all in one place. That is likely to be more visible than here. David Hollman (Talk) 15:53, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Cleaned this article and heat article
I don't know who messed (or mixed up) the heat, thermal energy, heat transfer, pages (e.g. put the history of heat into the thermal energy page, etc.) but I will quickly clean up the mess. Each term has a distinct meaning, internal energy was essentially defined by Rudolf Clausius in the 1850s (although he built on some shoulders). --Sadi Carnot 04:15, 28 June 2007 (UTC) people if you don't know what thermal energy is don't ask me —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.2.37.50 (talk) 21:08, 30 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Disscussion moved to Talk:Heat

why they call thermal energy for energy of heat an —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.30.143.169 (talk) 14:42, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Thermal Energy:1 bottle Litter,a large ballon,a bowl of hot water[not boling],a bowl of ice cold water,and a small rock.p.s this is materials that you need for a science project!

Bold textTHE BEST!!!!!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.108.50.244 (talk) 01:43, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

crappppy webbbb
This is a crapppppppppy web come onnnn wat info u give???????? NOTHING NOTHING and more NOTHING U cant even tell me wat heat energy is!!!!!!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.242.191.163 (talk) 19:42, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Merger proposal 2
Although this has been discussed before without coming to a clear conclusion, I propose merging this page with Internal energy. Specifically, all that needs to be said about this topic is already said in Internal energy, where, compared to this article, it's said much more clearly and without the added nonsense. Djr32 (talk) 19:40, 5 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree. My understanding is that thermal energy and internal energy are synonymous, so Wikipedia should have only one article, and the alternative term should re-direct to the one article. Dolphin51 (talk) 22:04, 5 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Done. Djr32 (talk) 19:44, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Please see for more recent discussion of this issue. David Hollman (Talk) 15:53, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * (The discussion is on a proposal to undo the merge.) Riick (talk) 16:01, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

November 2010 rewrite
The article was rewritten and reinstituted on 2010-11-03T23:06:30 by User:Kbrose.

Definition of thermal energy
I'm a Physics teacher and I'd like to share my opinion on the definition of thermal energy. First of all, thermal energy and heat are not the same. And I'm glad this article shows this difference perfectly. Thermal energy is a component of internal energy whereas heat is a form of energy transfer (the other forms are work and mass transfer). Now, some people consider thermal energy only to be the quantity of kinetic energy of all the molecules, atoms, electrons, etc. of a system. I do not like this definition because it does no consider what happens when a system absorbs or release (internal) energy while changing from a state to another. For example, consider what happens when a piece of ice starts abosorbing energy, initially its tempeature increases and, therefore, it means that its internal energy has increased, specifically its thermal energy (becauses its internal kinetic energy increased). If the piece of ice keeps absorbing energy, eventually it will not increase its temperature for a while but will change its state from solid to liguid. The question is: WHAT COMPONENT OF THE INTERNAL ENERGY INCREASED DURING THIS STATE CHANGE? The nuclear energy? Nop! Because nothing happened at the nuclear level. The chemical energy? Nop! Because no chemical bonds have been created or destroyed. When the state changes, it means that the spatial arrangement of the molecules of the system changed. So, what component of the internal energy accounts for this? I say, necessarily, the thermal energy but if it is defined to consider ONLY the internal kinetic energy it WILL NOT BE USEFUL to answer this key question, but, if it is defined to consider ALSO the state of the system, then, that energy absorbed by the piece of ice to change its state will represent an increment in the thermal energy. When I teach my classes I teach that thermal energy has two components:

Sensible energy: The internal kinetic energy of the system and,

Latent energy: The potential energy associated to the state (solid, liquid, gas, plasma, etc.) of the system.

In my classes, sensible energy and sensible heat are not the same. Sensible heat is defined as the amount of heat (the quatity of energy that must be absorbed or released) necessary to produce a change in temperature. Besides, latent energy and latent heat are not the same either. Latent heat is the amount of heat (the quatity of energy that must be absorbed or released) necessary to produece a change of state.

So, by using "my" definition, the problem is solved. Pitifully, this definition is not widely used. An example of this case is this article. Here, thermal energy only considers the internal kinetic energy but not the potential energy relative to the state of the system. There's a couple of websites that share my point of view:

http://www.ifpaenergyconference.com/Thermal-Energy.html http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Does_thermal_energy_increase_during_a_phase_change

George Rodney Maruri Game (talk) 03:03, 19 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I rewrote the current article as it stands (it was redirect to internal energy for some time) and I understand your point, concern, and plight. Indeed, you are not alone in this view. However, it is difficult to find reliable references that support the view. I considered the view when rewriting, and if I find something that is reliable and definitive, I might add a paragraph. It is difficult to find physics texts that define the term explicitly at all in any sense. Most just used it as if it were commonly understood, or rather loosely as energy that has some thermal implication. The website references you gave are no help really either, they are not reliable. The first provides an explanation, but swiftly contradicts itself with various associations of the term with closely related concepts, including the temperature itself, when it states that the "...difference in temperature is noted as the thermal energy", the latter being the opposing definition. It also makes completely useless statements, such as "thermal energy refers to heat that is created through the process of thermal energy". The second reference is more consistent and expresses your view clearer, but again, it is not reliable and has no sources cited.
 * The answer to your quiz of which component of the internal energy increases is the potential energy. Potential energy is energy of configuration. Latent heat is the energy introduced into a system that causes changes in potential energy due to phase or configuration modifications. This change in potential energy you may call a latent energy, although this is not a common use, I don't think. The terms latent heat and latent energy are typically not distinguished, and both are used to refer to the heat required to affect a phase change. A distinction would almost certainly cause more confusion in this jungle of terms. As you know, the distinction between heat and thermal energy is hard to swallow for many already, and other disciplines than physics definitely have there own firm habits of using them. In the context of the article's definition, latent and sensible heat are components of energy introduced into a system, causing potential and kinetic energy changes, respectively. Kbrose (talk) 07:13, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I'm so glad for your words. You have said many things which are completely true. First of all the sources are not "that" reliable. I understand that and besides the first constradicts itself. Obviously for me it's been really hard to find good sources. Thanks for answering "my question" (potential energy) in fact, it's all about terms. Potential energy is the energy associated to the spatial arrangement or configuration of the components and, as you might have noticed, I define latent energy as "the potential energy associated to the state (solid, liquid, gas, plasma, etc.) of the system." It means we share our point of view only with different terms. In short, LATENT ENERGY IS POTENTIAL ENERGY. The other question is "Should we consider latent energy (potential energy) as a part of thermal energy?". If we say "yes"... let's see... if temperature only has to do the average "kinetic component", it is, the sensible energy (not heat, remember "my" definition?, he, he), it means that temperature wouldn't be related to the average of the total thermal energy but only to one component. But if the answer is "no", temperature would give a reading of the average of all the "thermal energy". Thank you for answering. I hope some day all this matter finally ends up with a world-wide agreement regardless of the terms but with the same "idea".George Rodney Maruri Game (talk) 16:41, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The definitions of thermal energy, whether implicitly or explicitly stated in sources and in informal discussions in the laboratory always involves the term k T. So, including the potential energy of configuration into thermal energy is not intuitive. At 0K matter has configurational energy too. The configuration and interaction of particles in physics is analogous to the electronic configuration (chemical energy) of a molecule in chemistry. A phase change in physics (a change in configuration) is much alike a reaction in chemistry (a rearrangement of local electronic configuration). Sometimes when the coupling of intra-molecular forces and lattice (inter-molecular) forces is strong, it may be impossible to separate the two processes. Yet, nobody is suggesting that the chemical energy is part of the internal thermal energy, which would be the logical extension of including the latent energy change into the thermal energy. Both processes can be driven by supply of heat and chemical reactions may have a latent heat as well. So, the logical choice is to call the thermal energy only the part of internal energy that is measured as temperature.
 * As for your distinction of latent/sensible heat versus energy, I find that inappropriate and very confusing in the process of teaching. I do not believe that there exist any references that support this. The terms latent and sensible are always associated with the energy transferred in a process, i.e. the heat. These terms do not specify different forms of energy, only characterizations of the same form, namely heat. This usage goes back to the founders of thermodynamics, see for example Joule's papers of 1847, and I recently added some historical context for this in the articles on latent heat and sensible heat. Kbrose (talk) 21:03, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Again, thanks for your comments. To be honest, reading your words enhance my own learning about this topic. I agree with you practically in everything. But I have this "maniatic" custom of "labeling" every little thing. So, what do you think of these (obviusly as you have stated some of my ideas are unsupported but I want to know your opinion):

Chemical (potential) energy: The potential energy associated to the intra-molecular (inter-atomic) configuration of a substance.

???? (potential) energy: The potential energy associated to the inter-molecular configuration (lattice). May I suggest ???? = "latent" (I know there are no supportive sources, but just tell me your opinion about the idea, I´ve come to acknowledge your great insight about all this)

Thermal energy: Total kinetic energy at both inter-molecular and inter-atomic levels of a sample of substance.

Sensible energy: Average kinetic energy at both inter-molecular and inter-atomic levels.

Temperature: A "measure" of the average kinetic energy (sensible energy) at both inter and inter-atomic levels.

Latent heat: Energy necessary to produce a state change.

Sensible heat: Energy necessary to produce a temperature change.

I appreciate so much to have the opportunity to share my ideas with someone who, in my opinion, has unselfishly brought a great level of comprehension relative to this topic (at least for me because I´m still learning, too young to look like a Physics teacher, he, he, he). I understand that even if you agree on my "ideas" they won´t make it into the article due to lack of reliable, published and widely accepted sources.George Rodney Maruri Game (talk) 18:49, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The '????' is really dependent on the system studied. It has many names depending on the system and the model used to study or describe it. Call it Van-der-Waals energy, Lennard-Jones energy, lattice energy, Ewald coulomb energy, intermolecular interactions,... Plenty of opportunity for 'labeling'. But 'latent' it really should not be called as a static energy, even though it is changed by the latent heat. I would suggest latent heat = latent energy, and sensible heat = sensible energy, or just avoid the energy versions and stick to heat. Kbrose (talk) 06:08, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Simply wonderful and precise! Finally I think I've come to understand all this "almost perfectly", because I still have a couple of questions, though. Thank you so much for your patience. One question is: Is temperature an exact reading of the average kinetic energy of a sample or just a "measure"? That way there wouldn't be no need for two terms (what I proposed as sensible energy would be the same as temperature: The average kinetic energy at the inter-molecualar and inter-atomic levels). The other questions is (or rather request): Would it be possible that this explanation you have given (and further ones you might give in the future) to me can make it into this article, please? I mean if it has been so valuable to me, maybe others can get some benefit also. You know, it is true that I teach Physics but just at the high school level and I bet you have studied a lot more than me, probably you teach at a college or university or your work requires you to understand all this very well. Nevertheless, I think that all this confusion remains because all this thing is not taught earlier and correctly (at high school!). That way colleges or universities teachers wouldn't have to "destroy" so many myths (fix misconceptions) about internal energy, thermal energy, heat and temperature. Thank you again. I hope I'm not taking so much of your time.George Rodney Maruri Game (talk) 16:43, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Regarding temperature, I think 'to take an exact reading' and 'to measure' is pretty much the same thing, but measure is certainly more formally appropriate for science. The usage 'temperature is a measure of kinetic energy' has been subject of some disputes here on WP, see of example talk:temperature. Some people just don't see how temperature can have its own unit when it is a measure of energy. In the end there is nothing wrong with it, even the measurement of temperature in energy units (e.g., eV) is not unusual in physics, but you have to be careful in teaching about proper relationships, because temperature is an intensive property, i.e. not dependent on the size of the sample being measured, while kinetic energy is an extensive property, certainly dependent on the number of molecules present. The key is to recognize that the temperature scales, or reduces, the energy by the number of degrees of freedom (DOF) available for a system at that temperature. Thereby, each DOF contributes 1/2 kT to the thermal energy. DOFs are extensive as is the energy, so the result of the division is the intensive temperature, whether it is measured in kelvin or an energy unit.
 * Some of our discussions here certainly should be reflected in some article(s), and are already, but I will look out for improvements along these lines. I recently rewrote the definition section of internal energy, where this is very relevant and I will review at times to see if changes need be made. Perhaps you can review there as well, it does need more work. Kbrose (talk) 12:46, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

What can I say but thank you. Now, doubts are just memories! I think I will come here to the talk page every time I need to look for information on this topic, he, he. See you around...George Rodney Maruri Game (talk) 02:36, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Thermal energy is all kinetic, microscopically?
The article says: In the microscopical description of statistical physics, the thermal energy is identified with the mechanical kinetic energy of the constituent particles or other forms of kinetic energy associated with quantum-mechanical microstates. '''The distinguishing difference between the terms kinetic energy and thermal energy is that thermal energy is the mean energy of disordered, i.e. random, motion of the particles or the oscillations in the system. The conversion of energy of ordered motion to thermal energy results from collisions.[5]'''

The reference is not online, but if it actually says this, it is wrong. The thermal energy in an ideal gas is all kinetic energy, but the thermal energy of solids is (on average) twice as much as for gases at the same temperature. This is a simple demonstration that since twice the heat is stored at the same temp in a solid as in a monatomic gas, and since temperature is connnected to mean kinetic energy of atoms, that therefore the extra 100% of energy-content (thermal energy) stored in solids as you raise their temperature, is not kinetic energy, but some other sort of energy (in fact, it is the potential energy component of vibration). So all this is wrong. Incidentally, some texts (not all) go even further to define "latent heat content" as part of the thermal energy. This makes perfect sense, as latent energy contributes to energy that is absorbed and extracted from systems during heat transfer and stored in the system in the meantime as a thermally accessable reservoir of energy (like any degree of freedom). What else would you call latent heat content, if it participates fully in heat storage, except system thermal energy? Of course, this makes hash of the "contributes to temperature" definition of thermal energy (unless qualified as being in a single phase), but that definition is not written in stone. A better one is that thermal energy (what used to be called heat content) is that part of internal energy which changes when you add or subtract heat, using a temperature gradient. Very simple. It isn't exactly classical heat capacity times temperature, unless you add a term covering heat absorption due to phase change (where heat capacity is infinite). But phase changes add to the thermal energy ("heat content" in the old terminology) of systems, as anybody using steam condensation to extract heat can tell you. Steam has a thermal energy that the equivalent amount of water at the same temperature, does not. Any engineer would regard it that way. S B Harris 19:47, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I would add the remark that the article refers only to the "average translational kinetic energy" but the specific heat (as you should call it, not heat capacity) automatically includes a measurement of the variation in any unfrozen vibrational and rotational degrees of freedom. We know by equipartion that these must have equal energy to translational degrees of freedom (energy being shared in collisions) and so the word "translational" ought to be omitted. I am happy with energy stored due to phase change being referred to as perhaps "phase change potential energy" and I would add that we should also include a term for molecular gravitational potential energy whenever we are considering a process that is not all within a horizontal plane. Did you know, for example, that entropy can increase with a non-radiative heat transfer from cooler to warmer regions in a force field? It happens radially in a Vortex tube for example due to centrifugal force. It is also happening in a troposphere such as that of Uranus where no solar radiation penetrates to the lower regions, but it gets hotter than Earth at the base of that nominal tropospere where there is no surface anyway. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.191.118.252 (talk) 04:01, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I would add the remark that the article refers only to the "average translational kinetic energy" but the specific heat (as you should call it, not heat capacity) automatically includes a measurement of the variation in any unfrozen vibrational and rotational degrees of freedom. We know by equipartion that these must have equal energy to translational degrees of freedom (energy being shared in collisions) and so the word "translational" ought to be omitted. I am happy with energy stored due to phase change being referred to as perhaps "phase change potential energy" and I would add that we should also include a term for molecular gravitational potential energy whenever we are considering a process that is not all within a horizontal plane. Did you know, for example, that entropy can increase with a non-radiative heat transfer from cooler to warmer regions in a force field? It happens radially in a Vortex tube for example due to centrifugal force. It is also happening in a troposphere such as that of Uranus where no solar radiation penetrates to the lower regions, but it gets hotter than Earth at the base of that nominal tropospere where there is no surface anyway. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.191.118.252 (talk) 04:01, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

THermal energy is not a state function unless all inputs are restricted to make dQ the only way that dU changes. No PV or any other type of work!
I must fix the thermal energy article, which states that thermal energy is a state function. Nonsense! Except in the limit that no chemical or PV work is done, so that a change in thermal energy becomes a change in internal energy, which is a state function. Otherwise the difference between constant pressure and constant volume heat capacities (which are different for every substance, even if good approximations) show clearly that temperature is path-dependent, and thus so is thermal energy or "heat content." You can get an object to the same temperature in two ways (for example), using two different total amounts of heat dumped into it, if you let it do PV work to get to the state in one case, but not in the other. So δW = 0 and no change in chemical potential and so on, must be specified before we talk of thermal energy in any such fashion. And then indeed, "thermal energy" (an idealized quantity in the limit of no other energies that are reversibly turned into heat at the same time) is that component of internal energy that can be extracted by a temperature gradient. But if you don't make δW = 0, you can, by fiddling with work or other internal heat/chemical potential sources, extract any number of differert amounts of thermal energies from the same object, in passing to a given lower temperature (or to absolute zero, for that matter). If you do so, that makes thermal energy content inherrently ridiculous. S B Harris 01:47, 2 June 2012 (UTC)


 * You are using Thermal Energy to equate with "heat content" which, as you point out, is rather meaningless because the heat that flow to or from a body depends on the process and cannot be a function of its state. But, according to the Ency. Brit. usage of the term, "Thermal Energy" is a particular part of the internal energy of the body or system - i.e. that part that contributes to temperature. As pointed out in the Hyperphysics reference, this is the average translational kinetic energy of the molecules in the body or system. So what is needed here is a clarification that this second paragraph relates to a different usage of the term "Thermal Energy" than is set out in the first paragraph and the authorities cited. I think the paragraph that you added should be prefaced by a statement to the effect that this is a different usage of the term. I would suggest changing this paragraph as follows:


 * The term "thermal energy" may also be used in a different sense to refer to the "heat content" or the amount of heat flow that has been received by, or can be extracted from, the body or system in question. If it is used this way it must be, implicitly or explicitly, with reference to a particular process as well as a temperature difference through which the process acts. Otherwise this quantity cannot be determined and is meaningless. This is because the total amount of heat that enters an object is not a conserved quantity, like mass or energy, and will depend on the process and temperatures during that process. If the term "thermal energy" is used to denote "heat content," it is not a measureable and objective part of the internal energy of a body or system.


 * There should also be a reference to some authority in which "thermal energy" is used in this sense to mean "heat content". AMSask (talk) 16:15, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

The opening statement.
The article opens with:

Thermal energy is the part of the total internal energy of a thermodynamic system or sample of matter that results in the system temperature.[1] This quantity may be difficult to determine or even meaningless unless the system has attained its temperature only through heating, and not been subjected to work input or output, or any other energy-changing processes.

Which is not correct.

Thermal energy is that energy in a system due to the (total) kinetic, i.e. including rotational energy, of the particles of the system.

Since there is no requirement for the system to be in equilibrium to 'have thermal energy' then no 'system' temperature can (or needs to) be identified, the thermal energy in a system is merely the sum of the kinetc energy of the particles in the system.

P.S. I notice that the 1st ref. in the article is to an article in Encyclopedia Britannica which of course derives some of its material from Wikipedia. Wikipedia is, of course, not a reliable source. --Damorbel (talk) 08:14, 5 November 2012 (UTC)


 * For the tenth time half of thermal energy in solids is potential, which is why their heat capacity is more than twice that of room temp gases, and always greater than gases for loosely bonded solids. More importantly, if PV work is done by a system, then not all heat that flows into it is thermal energy. So thermal energy is not trapped heat energy save when no work is done. When work is done, thermal energy is just what energy is left over. S B Harris 09:18, 5 November 2012 (UTC)


 * The Ency. Brit. article leaves open the possibility that "Thermal Energy" includes molecular potential energy as well as rotational and vibrational kinetic energies despite the fact that these energies do not contribute directly to temperature. The Hyperphysics reference would not leave open that possibility. According to the equipartition theorem, the energies associated with each degree of freedom are equal. [This is, of course, not always the case due quantum effects (i.e. at temperatures where previously closed-out modes start becoming active to temperatures where all modes are fully active)]. Although only translational kinetic energy contributes to temperature, the other energies (potential and non-translational kinetic) will be usually be equal to the translational kinetic energy of the molecules. Since potential and non-translational kinetic energies are included in the internal energy and since their energies are a function of the body's temperature, they could be included in the term "thermal energy" under the Ency. Brit. usage. AMSask (talk) 16:50, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

"For the tenth time half of thermal.... What is your point? In solids the thermal energy is stored in the vibrations of the various bonds making the system a solid. Since these are vibrations the energy is, according to the period of the vibrations, regularly exchanged between kinetic and potential energy and, omitting the tranfer that takes place in non-equlibrium conditions, all the potential energy is changed into kinetic energy, thus they are equal. So the total energy is equal to the maximum potential energy or the maximum kinetic energy or half the potential energy plus half the kinetic energy. If you wish to go further in this matter you may wish to study phonon interactions wherby the nature these vibrational energy processes are given a sound theoretical basis, including thermal conduction. --Damorbel (talk) 10:05, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree entirely. Any unfrozen states of rotational and/or vibrational kinetic and potential energy will share any increase in energy in each translational degree of freedom, as per Equipartition theorem. Any other form of energy (eg phase change potential energy, gravitational potential energy) is separate and should be called what it is. If, for example, in an isolated "ideal" column of a planet's troposphere (close to what we get at night in calm conditions, for example) the only forms of energy that can alter at the molecular level are kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy (as in any vertical component of molecular motion between collisions) then there will be no unbalanced energy potentials (hence maximum entropy) when the sum (kinetic energy + gravitational potential energy) is constant at all altitudes. So (as we observe) there is a stable non-zero equilibrium temperature gradient in calm conditions in the early pre-dawn hours without any apparent advection. I'll leave it to you to think about the consequences of this fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.191.118.252 (talk) 04:21, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree entirely. Any unfrozen states of rotational and/or vibrational kinetic and potential energy will share any increase in energy in each translational degree of freedom, as per Equipartition theorem. Any other form of energy (eg phase change potential energy, gravitational potential energy) is separate and should be called what it is. If, for example, in an isolated "ideal" column of a planet's troposphere (close to what we get at night in calm conditions, for example) the only forms of energy that can alter at the molecular level are kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy (as in any vertical component of molecular motion between collisions) then there will be no unbalanced energy potentials (hence maximum entropy) when the sum (kinetic energy + gravitational potential energy) is constant at all altitudes. So (as we observe) there is a stable non-zero equilibrium temperature gradient in calm conditions in the early pre-dawn hours without any apparent advection. I'll leave it to you to think about the consequences of this fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.191.118.252 (talk) 04:21, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Latest change
I have removed the text :-

In engineering and technology, and particularly in fields that deal with civil energy use and conservation in building construction, heating systems, and power generation, heat and thermal energy are often indiscriminately used interchangeably.

from the section: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thermal_energy&oldid=523879256#Distinction_of_thermal_energy_and_heat

Which is preposterous twaddle. I am sure there is no reliable source for this assertion. --Damorbel (talk) 13:42, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

More nonsense
Where does this come from? :-

According to the zeroth law of thermodynamics, heat is exchanged between thermodynamic systems in thermal contact only if their temperatures are different,

Surely the second law! (And it should be energy that is exchanged.) --Damorbel (talk) 14:07, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Revision 2
The article has the following in the intoduction:-

Thermal energy is the part of the total internal energy of a thermodynamic system or sample of matter that results in the system temperature.[1]

Which is not at all true. Thermal energy is the energy of particles in motion, it can be linear motion, rotary motion or vibratory motion. The particles do not need to be part of a defined system, not even excepted by the needs of an inertial system.

Worse still there is no direct connection between system temperature and thermal energy. This latter has a refernce to the Encyclopedia Britannica which often uses Wikipedia as a source, what a joke! BTW, anybody know what System temperature is supposed to mean? --Damorbel (talk) 15:50, 21 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Latent heat is not particles in motion; it has nothing to do with kinetic energy. Ice at 0 C has the same temp as liquid water at 0 C by definition, therefore the same molecular speeds and kinetic energies. But it has far more internal energy content. You can call that extra internal energy an increase in "thermal energy" or heat content (even worse term) but even thermal energy makes no sense as a new term if work is extracted. If not, the "thermal" energy change is just the internal energy change and you may as well use that term. But if you extracted work as the ice melted (perhaps it sucked a piston in against a force and turned a generator as it contracted while melting) then you had to add that much more heat while melting it. So how much heat you add tells you nothing about "content". When you cool the same thing happens. You get  less heat out when you cool if you make the expanding water do work while changing to ice. So imaging that there's some mythical heat content trapped there waiting to be measured by how much heat comes out when you freeze, is just wrong. No such constant quantity of heat exists. So why imagine it? That's our central question for this article. If you define it, how would you ever measure it in practice?  S  B Harris 20:05, 21 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Latent heat is not particles in motion;I agree, it is potential energy, (mostly) due to the van der Waals force(s). But why call it latent heat, since it is not involved with temperature change? The current usage is misleading and a Wiki article should draw attention to this. I find 'internal energy' no more helpful because it can include chemical energy and mass energy (E = mc2).


 * I suggest, when discussing these matters, it is important to distinguish between heat and energy. In a thermal interaction it is only energy that is conserved, heat is not a conserved quantity whereas energy is. Without identifying this basic physics, discussion will always run in circles. --Damorbel (talk) 11:07, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

I have revised the opening statement according to the above discussion. Of particlar importance is the removal of the link to the Encyclopedia Britannica which appears to have copied its content from a previous version of Wikipedia! --Damorbel (talk) 06:35, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

"Thermal energy" is not kinetic energy of particles
It is obvious nonsense to suggest that putting an object in uniform translatory motion affects its "thermal energy", which is what the last version of the article implied. Thermal energy cannot simply be the average kinetic energy of particles, because "thermal" implies a thermal distribution, and (for example) uniform motion gives every particle the same kinetic energy - which has nothing to do with thermal anything. The real problem is that "thermal energy" doesn't make much sense, and this article should be entirely re-written to reflect that.  Waleswatcher  ( talk ) 22:14, 24 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Waleswatcher, you write:-
 * 1/ It is obvious nonsense to suggest that putting an object in uniform translatory motion affects its "thermal energy" 


 * Why is it nonsense? A gas particle with kinetic energy ½mv2 has only linear motion until it collides, it doesn't know it is going to collide, that depends on the density of particles. The connection between particle (kinetic) energy and temperature is ½mvRMS2 = 3 kBT (where vRMS = (vx2 + vy2 + vz2)1/2) whether it collides or not!


 * 2/ because "thermal" implies a thermal distribution


 * The term distribution requires that you are referring to a system with many particles. The thermal energy in a system is proportional to the number of particles and the sum of their individual (kinetic) energies, so just how can it be that "thermal energy" doesn't make much sense? --Damorbel (talk) 08:50, 25 February 2013 (UTC)


 * True enough. But the concept of an energy associated with the integral of heat capacity dT when no work is done, is useful enough in situations where no work is done, that this type of change in internal energy intimately connected with heat transfer, is called the thermal energy. Plenty of texts in heat transfer do this, whether or not it's entirely kosher in thermodynamics. I think it's best to just deal with the situtaion and try to give the reader some sense of what is being talked about. Thermal energy is internal energy when no work is being done. It is the internal energy available for change by pure heat transfer when no heat is being transformed into work or chemical potential. That sort of energy is roughly conserved, and can be used in heat transfer equations. S  B Harris 03:04, 25 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Sbharris, am I correct if I say that you do not accept particle motion as thermal energy? If I am correct, do you accept that moving (and colliding) particles have any energy content and, if so, how do you describe this 'motional energy'? --Damorbel (talk) 08:50, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Bulk particle motion in one direction is not thermal energy. A perfect crystal at 0 K moving half the speed of light, has a hell of  a lot of kinetic energy. But it still has no thermal energy, and it still has a temperature of zero. It has the same temperature in all frames, in fact, which is zero. S B Harris 22:36, 25 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Sorry but :-
 * A perfect crystal at 0 K moving half the speed of light, has a hell of  a lot of kinetic energy


 * is a complete contradiction. Indeed moving [at] half the speed of light may well be at 0K in one reference frame but you are measuring its velocity (½c) in another. If you arrange for the crystal suddenly to change reference frames by 'colliding with something' it may well vapourise in its new reference frame! --Damorbel (talk) 12:15, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
 * There is no contradiction, except with your mistaken conception of what temperature and thermal energy are. Take a crystal at 0K.  Put it in motion at speed c/2 (without affecting its internal structure at all), or simply Lorentz transform to a frame in which the crystal is moving at speed c/2.  IF temperature and/or thermal energy were defined by the average KE of the constituent particles of the crystal, both would now be enormous.  But temperature (and, to the extent it makes sense at all, thermal energy) are NOT defined that way.  To be thermal, the distribution of velocities among some large collection of particles must not merely be non-zero, it must have a specific form  (Maxwell-Boltzmann for a non-interacting gas, for instance).  Instead, in our crystal every single molecule has exactly the same velocity.  There is nothing remotely thermal about that.  The crystal's entropy is zero.  Its temperature is zero.  Its thermal energy is zero.   Waleswatcher  ( talk ) 17:27, 26 February 2013 (UTC)


 * You do not respond to my argument. Your example is very close to the kinetic anti-tank round.
 * In such a round the propellant is the only source of energy, when fired its chemical energy turns it into hot gas at high pressure; the hot gas expands giving the missile (a small cylinder of depleted uranium) a velocity of perhaps 1600 to 2000m/s. When it strikes the target its kinetic energy is turned to heat by 'bending' the armour. This heat is sufficient to kill the crew in a 'brew up' i.e. enough heat to set the target on fire from the inside.


 * During its short flight the round converts only a small percentage of its kinetic energy into heat by friction with the atmosphere, so it remains relatively cool; by contrast the (solid) shot, without any fuel, sets a complete tank on fire with a great flash. By this means the energy of of cordite burning in the gun barrel is used to 'brew up' at tank perhaps 3km away. --Damorbel (talk) 19:47, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

You don't HAVE an argument. It doesn't matter if a meteoroid produces a great deal of heat when it strikes the atmosphere or the earth (or whichever). The point is that its kinetic energy of motion does not make it hot BEFORE it strikes and produces friction. It can (and usually is) moving very fast but is still very cold. This high kinetic energy is not "temperature" or "thermal energy" in space. It is only converted to thermal energy and heat that raises temperature, after it hits. S B Harris 23:23, 27 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Sbharris, what do you mean "[I]... don't have an argument"?


 * Since kinetic energy is a function of velocity, above I made the very relevant point that defining the reference frame is an absolute requirement and you have yet to explain why you disagree. It is not possible to define kinetic energy without knowing the reference frame, this applies to meteoroids, atomic particles and anti-tank solid shot as well as crystals at 0K travelling at ½c. --Damorbel (talk) 07:13, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't apply to temperatures when they are zero, since zero multiplied by any number is zero. An object with a temp of zero in any frame, will have a temp of zero in ALL frames. Of course, that's not true of kinetic energy. Which is why this type of frame- dependent KE doesn't add to temperature. If you think you can give an object at rest at 0 K a temperature by moving it (or yourself), do you think it will then start to give off thermal IR radiation? Do you think it radiates energy away like this in some frames but not at all in its rest frame? Very funny. S B Harris 18:25, 5 March 2013 (UTC)


 * It doesn't apply to temperatures when they are zero
 * What doesn't apply at absolute zero?


 * Take group of N particles at 0K, the group may well have a (bulk) velocity v>0 wrt any frame you care to mention, in which case it has KE = N x 1/2 mv2 wrt that frame. But since the particles are at 0K they have no velocity (thus no KE) with respect to each other but the KE of the (group) is still N x 1/2 mv2.


 * If you think about it the bulk (or absolute) velocity is always unknown because there is no absolute reference point in the universe to measure it by. Velocity is always relative; when a meteoroid hits the Earth this is only a folk tale; how do you know it wasn't the Earth that hit the meteoroid? --Damorbel (talk) 15:48, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. You have just made a good argument for why the idea of the temperature of a single particle is meaningless. S B Harris 20:25, 6 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Indeed not! there are no limits placed on N and there need be no limit. Temperature is energy per particle per K, the Boltzmann constant. Perhaps you can explain your assertion, please? --Damorbel (talk) 21:42, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Temperature is only proportional to the mean translational kinetic energy of a single particle and it does not include rotational kinetic energy, for example. The constant factors depends on the unit system Manouchk (talk) 03:41, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

You are the person who asserted that one particle could be said to have a temperature, were you not? Well, it can't. S  B Harris 21:55, 6 March 2013 (UTC)


 * That's what you keep saying, but that doesn't mean that your assertion is correct and the Boltzmann constant is not the energy of a particle per K, a fact that completely contradicts what you write. Please justify your assertion. --Damorbel (talk) 22:07, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
 * The Boltzmann contstant is not the energy of a particle per K. The Boltzmann constant is the average energy per particle of a collection of particles (two or more) per K. You will see no derivation of the Bolzmann constant that do not use the "average" sign. It usually looks like two brackets around the velocity, or it can be a vinculum line over the E, or something of that sort. It can be a subscript RMS which is a method of taking averages of more than one velocity (the M stands for mean), and that makes no sense at all for a single particle. S  B Harris 23:19, 6 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I understand from what you write is that temperature is dependent on the number of particles in a system? I think we have been here before and you have not yet explained how this can be. Further you state "...taking averages... makes no sense at all for a single particle." I disagree, particles in a thermal system are in constant motion above 0K, however the individual particles have, in equilibrium, the same (time) average energy; this just as true a single particle level as at the bulk, if this wasn't true the system would not be in equilibrium because equilibrium requires the equipartition of energy. --Damorbel (talk) 08:45, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Potential energy?
Currently the opening section of this article has:-
 * Thermal energy is the part of the total potential energy and kinetic energy of an object

In what sense is "potential energy" thermal, i.e. a function of temperature? For example, how can gravitational potential energy be thermal and how can chemical potential energy be thermal.

These are serious inaccuracies not appropriate to Wikipedia. --Damorbel (talk) 06:30, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Further. The following text also appears :-
 * Because the total amount of heat that enters an object is not a conserved quantity like mass or energy, and may be destroyed or created by many proceses, the idea of an object's thermal energy or "heat content," something that remains a measureable and objective part of the internal energy of a body, cannot be strictly upheld.

Thermal energy does not need to be conserved or even strictly upheld to be an important property. Exactly the same can be said for chemical and other forms of potential energy. These are all part of physics, the explanation of observational science. The fact that some quantities are conserved and others not are laws that provide understanding of how physical processes operate in a logical way.

This whole section needs revising to remove the confusion between kinetic and potential energy. --Damorbel (talk) 07:21, 24 May 2013 (UTC)


 * The inclusion of potential energy as part of thermal energy can easily be seen to be mistaken when considering a gas. Simple (or ideal) gases are particles with kinetic energy only, they have no potential energy. Such gas molecules only exchange energy by collisions with each other and the walls of the containing vessel. --Damorbel (talk) 09:28, 25 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Your logic is weak. Essentially what you're claiming is:
 * "Here is one particular thermal system that has no potential energy. Therefore potential energy can never be thermalised"
 * It doesn't actually follow, now does it?
 * In contrast, consider electrons in a quantum solid. The electrons occupy energy levels, according to a Boltzmann distribution.
 * Those energy levels can't be said to represent kinetic energy -- the kinetic energy isn't a constant of the motion. Instead they represent a combination of kinetic and potential energy.
 * So potential energy can quite readily be thermalised.
 * One could also construct a very similar example with classical oscillators. Jheald (talk) 21:56, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Um, no, Jheald; I did not say anything like:-
 * "potential energy can never be thermalised".

To expand what I said just a little, "gas molecules under pressure in a container do not have potential energy due to intermolecular forces as do the molecules in liquids and solids." To be more explicit the presence (or absence!) of potential energy (in any form) has no influence on temperature, that is why water boils at a constant temperature, freezes at a constant temperature etc., etc. --Damorbel (talk) 06:52, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I have just grasped the significance of what you wrote (above):-
 * consider electrons in a quantum solid. The electrons occupy energy levels, according to a Boltzmann distribution.


 * I doubt this very much. Surely they occupy quantum levels? A Boltzmann distribution is a random distribution arising from random exchange of particle energies. Or don't you agree? --Damorbel (talk) 07:07, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * See eg here for a bit more -- especially the picture.
 * The levels the electrons can occupy are quantum levels. But the occupation probability is thermalised.  The electrons get knocked from level to level by phonons, or by each other -- exactly the "random exchange of particle energies" you describe above.  Those just below the Fermi level can exchange energy with those just above it.  For non-zero temperatures that creates the thermalised distribution shown.
 * (Caveats: (i) technically it's a Fermi-Dirac distribution, which is a special variant of the Boltzmann distribution that takes into account the necessary anti-symmetry of the overall electron wavefunction, so that you can't have more than two electrons (one spin up, one spin down) in any particular quantum state; (ii) the shape of the actual density of states is usually a little more complicated than the simple parabola of the free electron model). Jheald (talk) 08:48, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

state function that seems similar to "thermal energy"
Can't the thermal energy of a system be defined as as state function something like the following?


 * The thermal energy of a system is equal to the maximum amount of energy that could, in principle, be extracted from the system solely by heat processes (i.e. without any work, matter transfer, etc., in or out of the system)".

Of course, by "in principle", I mean I'm allowing for the hypothetical process mentioned in the definition to take place (arbitrarily close to) remaining at equilibrium and to take the temperature of the system (arbitrarily close) to absolute zero, where the thermal energy becomes zero. Doesn't this definition constitute a state function, i.e. its value doeesn't depend on how the system got into that state, correct? It is an operational definition in that you can measure this quantity of energy to some precision by cooling the system in a certain way. If this definition isn't consistent with the concept of thermal energy, when and why do they differ?

DavRosen (talk) 05:54, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps a better approach?
It might be helpful to recognize that there are of course numerous interconversions between forms of energy and that only TOTAL energy of the UNIVERSE is conserved. An "isolated" system is a reasonable facsimile. Given this it might be worth questioning the tendency to single out thermal energy as particularly ill-defined because of the fact of energy interconversion. The same can be said of all forms of energy except for total energy of the universe or isolated system. Thermal energy is simply an especially good example of a form of energy with many interconversions both input and output. Davidr222 (talk) 16:15, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

'Thermal Energy' is not a scientific term
The term 'Thermal energy' is a not used in thermodynamics. It has no precise definition so it can mean different things in different contexts. This means that it should not have its own Wikipedia page. In my view an article on 'Thermal Energy' should redirect to Internal energy and Heat.

The article incorrectly states:

1. "Thermal energy is the part of the total potential energy and kinetic energy of an object or sample of matter that results in the system temperature." Potential energies and non-translational kinetic energies of molecules do not contribute to the temperature of a substance.

2. "It is represented by the variable Q, and can be measured in joules."  Q is a defined term in thermodynamics. In a thermodynamic process, Q represents heat flow, which is essentially energy transferred to or from a system by means other than mechanical work ie.: The First Law of Thermodynamics: Q + W = ΔU where W is the work done ON the system. Q is NOT the same as the term 'thermal energy' is used in this article.AMSask (talk) 14:06, 20 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia contains information that is widely available in reliable published sources. Your statement implies that there is no reliable published source that gives credibility to the concept of thermal energy. Not one. Anywhere. How did you work that out?


 * I think a more likely explanation of your statement is that the books you use do not mention the concept of thermal energy. That may be true but it isn't sufficient to allow you to imply that the concept of thermal energy has no support in any reliable published source. Whether thermal energy warrants its own article on Wikipedia must be determined by the quality of the sources identified in the citations and references in the article. The first in-line citation relates to Encyclopaedia Britannica On-line and its entry on thermal energy. Are you able to mount a persuasive argument that Encyclopaedia Britannica On-line is not a reliable published source? Dolphin  ( t ) 06:10, 22 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Encyclopedia Britannica (EB) is not a primary authority and the article itself does not cite any references. But if the Wikipedia article actually said what the Encyclopedia Britannica said, that might be acceptable. But it does not. So I will change the first paragraph to accord with what the EB considers to be thermal energy. The problem is that "thermal energy" is used to mean different things, as the inconsistencies in the Wikipedia article demonstrate.


 * You do not address the two glaring errors that I have pointed out in the first paragraph. There is no authority or reference for the statements that potential and non-translational kinetic energies contribute to temperature. That is because they don't. Also Q refers to heat flow. If thermal energy refers to part of the internal energy (as per the EB article cited) of a system in thermodynamic equilibrium, it is not heat flow. Heat flow only occurs between systems at two different temperatures. Do you not think that these errors should be corrected?AMSask (talk) 14:28, 22 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Your statement implies that there is no reliable published source that gives credibility to the concept of thermal energy. That is not what I said. It is not a term that is used in thermodynamics. You will not find it mentioned anywhere in a text on Thermodynamics. See: Zemansky, Heat and Thermodynamics, for example. Since it is not precise scientific term, it can mean different things in different contexts, as the confusion in the article shows. Some use it to refer to "heat content" as in the second paragraph of this article. Some use it to refer to just the translational kinetic energy of the molecules in the system (see the Hyperphysics reference). Some use it as equivalent to the internal energy of the system (and refer to it as 'thermodynamic energy') as in the third paragraph. These uses are all very different. AMSask (talk) 04:12, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Primarily, I was responding to your statement This means that it should not have its own Wikipedia page.
 * You have written it can mean different things in different contexts. This is true of many, many things. One of the challenges in producing an encyclopaedia is to grapple with the different concepts and different meanings that authors attach to a term or expression; and to grapple with different terms or expressions that are intended to cover a common concept. For example, Wikipedia has over a dozen articles on the subject of entropy in order to do justice to the various concepts that rely on the word entropy. See Entropy (disambiguation).
 * If you look above you will see a thread titled Proposed merger and another titled Merger proposal 2. They cover community discussions between June 2007 and August 2010 on the subject of merging Thermal energy and Heat and Internal energy. You could re-activate one of those threads or start another one.
 * It appears the merge was enacted, but then it was reversed. See Talk:Internal energy.
 * Information about merging articles is available at WP:MAD. Dolphin  ( t ) 06:29, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
 * The article Thermal energy was merged into Internal energy on 11 October 2009. See the diff. It was re-established on its own page on 4 November 2010. See the diff. Dolphin  ( t ) 02:37, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

lede
I removed some language from the lede. This whole article is problematic - "thermal energy" is not a standard term in physics, and for good reason (it cannot be defined in general). But to the extent it makes sense, it is certainly not the "average kinetic energy per particle" - one could better define it by subtracting the average velocity first, but for that we need a reliable source, and I doubt there is one (hyperphysics certainly doesn't count as such). Anyway, I tried to make the lede less wrong.  Waleswatcher  ( talk ) 17:01, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Average kinetic energy per particle
Arguably thermal energy is a bulk property, not one of individual particles: but the kinetic energy of each particle contributes to it. This is a true statement, with a reference provided. So there is no reason to delete it. Ehrenkater (talk) 17:34, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

The reference is not to a reliable source, and "average KE per particle" is manifestly not the correct definition of thermal energy, or thermal anything. There is an extensive discussion of that further up the talk page, where several editors agreed (and the only disagreement was from an editor that I believe has been banned from editing any thermal physics articles). In brief, consider a zero temperature crystal. Now boost to a frame where the crystal is moving with velocity v. The temperature of the crystal is still zero, so by the definition in the first sentence of the lede, the thermal energy is zero. But by the definition of "average KE per particle", the crystal now has an arbitrarily large thermal energy.  Waleswatcher  ( talk ) 17:56, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that "thermal energy" has no reliable, universally accepted meaning. There is a difference between the Ency. Brit. and Hyperphysics definitions (the latter not including potential energy). Both definitions, however, represent mainstream usage of the term. The objection to "average KE per particle" is addressed by referring to the "average KE per particle as measured in the frame of reference of the center of mass of the system". That is implicit in the Hyperphysics definition. Temperature is always measured in the frame of reference of the center of mass. It is understood that the average KE per particle does not take into account the mechanical kinetic energy of the system as a whole.AMSask (talk) 18:31, 25 August 2014 (UTC)


 * By the way, there are plenty of other systems where kinetic energy can't be the right definition. For instance, consider a system of spins in a magnetic field.  At finite temperature the energy in the system is due to some of the spins being anti-aligned with the field, and has nothing whatsoever to do with kinetic energy.  (The real problem is that this whole idea of "thermal energy" is ill-defined, but at least let's try to make the article is not wrong as possible.)   Waleswatcher  ( talk ) 12:02, 15 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I am not sure what your objection is here. Can you provide a reference for the example that you are using? Are you are referring to a system at temperatures close to absolute zero? It is implicit in the term "thermal energy" that we are talking about systems of particles in thermal equilibrium. AMSask (talk) 18:31, 25 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Kinetic Theory says that the average kinetic energy per particle of a system of identical particles is  = nkT/2 where n is the total number of degrees of freedom of a particle in the system. This is the thermal energy per particle according to the Hyperphysics usage. However, Kinetic Theory assumes that Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics apply, which is not the case at temperatures approaching absolute zero.  In systems close to absolute zero, temperature has to be defined in terms of entropy:   T = partial derivative of U with respect to the S at constant N and constant V rather than in terms of kinetic energy (average translational KE per particle).  AMSask (talk) 18:31, 25 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Hi AMSask, just about any text will describe the thermodynamics of spins in a magnetic field - it's a classic example. For instance, Kittel and Kroemer.  As I said, in that system, the internal energy at finite temperature has nothing to do with KE.  That is true at all tempetatures, not just close to zero (and incidentally the temperature can be negative in that system).  Waleswatcher  ( talk ) 05:38, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reply Waleswatcher. Magnetic temperature, as I understand it, is a means of calculating a low temperature of a paramagnetic substance as the temperature is lowered by demagnetization. You appear to be saying that U has nothing to do with KE at any temperature. That amounts to a complete rejection of Kinetic Theory.  I think you need a really good authority for that.... It is true that kinetic theory does not hold up at temperatures close to absolute zero. But there is not much thermal energy at such temperatures and this article is about thermal energy.  The existence of negative temperature is a bit controversial since it depends on how one defines entropy (T = (∂U/∂S) at constant V). AMSask (talk) 04:52, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi AMSask, I think you've misunderstood me. I'm not saying KE has nothing to do with temperature ever, or even in general.  In many cases the temperature is in fact the average KE per particle.  I'm simply saying that there are plenty of systems in which the temperature and internal energy has nothing to do with KE, and I gave an example you'll find discussed in just about any textbook on statistical mechanics or thermal physics (so there are plenty of reliable sources).  The point is, thermal physics is extremely general - it applies to just about any system, including those that aren't composed of particles at all.  And as Sbharris points out, even for systems made of particles, the energy in the system is not only due to KE.    Waleswatcher  ( talk ) 12:11, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
 * As far as I can see, the only systems of particles in which T and U have nothing to do with KE are systems that obey Bose-Einstein statistics, which means they are extremely close to absolute zero. You have not provided any references. Can you give us just one reliable source of a system of particles that obey Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics in which T and U have nothing to do with KE? With regard to the last point, no one is saying that internal energy is due only to KE.  Internal energy ALWAYS includes PE. The issue here is whether "thermal energy" includes PE. In some usages it does and in others it does not, it appears. AMSask (talk) 00:33, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I already gave an example and a reference - spins in a B field, look in Kittel and Kroemer or here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_temperature#Noninteracting_two.E2.80.93level_particles . The spins are distinguishable, so the statistics are Maxwell-Boltzmann.  Waleswatcher  ( talk ) 04:22, 8 September 2014 (UTC)


 * This is a hypothetical system that doesn't exist. In this system of particles with magnetic dipole moments, the kinetic and potential energies of the particles are ignored and one only looks at the energy of the particles by virtue of their orientation in the magnetic field (i.e one ignores the thermodynamic internal energy of the system). The distribution of energies among the particles by virtue of the orientation of their spins cannot be Maxwell-Boltzmann. There are only two possible states for each particle. So I don't see how this example applies to the concept of "thermal energy".Can you give us some other example? AMSask (talk) 14:41, 8 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Free particles don't exist either. Neither do ideal gases.  Do you therefore refuse to consider those systems when discussing statistical physics?  There are plenty of experimental realizations that approximate the spin system I described.  Here's an experiment from 1951, for example http://journals.aps.org/pr/pdf/10.1103/PhysRev.81.279 .  Here's a recent experiment involving motional degrees of freedom for which the temperature is anyway negative (so, obviously not the average KE per particle) http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6115/52 .  I don't know what you mean when you say you don't see how this example applies to the concept of thermal energy.  The problem is the concept - which is nonsense - not the example.   Waleswatcher  ( talk ) 22:42, 9 September 2014 (UTC)


 * We are talking about the thermal energy of real matter. One does not need free particles. (If there are no inter-particle forces the particles are free. Noble gases such as He behave as free particles and so are essentially ideal gases except at very low temperatures). For real matter, thermal energy does have meaning. The problem is that it is used to mean slightly different things by different people. But, however it is used, it does refer to energy possessed by the particles in the system by virtue of temperature. I don't know about the concept of negative absolute temperature. It seems to me to be impossible although it might have some quantum mechanical significance. But this not normal matter. No one would talk about the 'thermal energy' of such a system.AMSask (talk) 06:04, 11 September 2014 (UTC)


 * "For real matter, thermal energy does have meaning...No one would talk about the 'thermal energy' of such a system." Those two statements are directly contradictory.  I gave you two links to experiments (and I could give many more).  Obviously, those experiments were done with real matter, for which you say thermal energy has a meaning, but at the same time you say no  one would talk about the thermal energy of such a system.  I think this discussion has ceased being useful.  When I have time, I'm going to edit the article rather than continue it.  Waleswatcher  ( talk ) 12:24, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
 * There is no contradiction. These systems of atoms that you are referring to are idealized systems of atoms that do not exist in the natural world. In any event, the distribution of energies of the atoms does not follow a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution. Since the energies of these atoms by virtue of their orientation in the magnetic field do not follow a thermal distribution, the energies would not be referred to as "thermal". That is all I am saying. See: AMSask (talk) 01:58, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

But, however it is used, it does refer to energy possessed by the particles in the system by virtue of temperature.

COMMENT: What? I don't know what your sentence means. How can one even TELL what part of the internal energy of a system is "possessed by virtue of temperature"? That sounds like a magic incantation. Do you mean the energy that goes in as heat while you warm the thing up from absolute zero? Like Q = ∫Cv dT from 0 K to whatever temp you have? And that Q is your "thermal energy"?
 * Thermal energy of a substance refers to one of three things, as far as I can tell: 1. all the thermodynamic internal energy (ie. kinetic and potential energy) 2. or just the kinetic energy component of the thermodynamic internal energy 3. or just the translational kinetic energy component of the thermodynamic internal energy.  All three are energies that the substance has by virtue its thermodynamic state.  Thermal energy is NOT the sum of all the heat flow into the substance beginning at absolute zero, despite what some of the contributors to this article might be suggesting. Thermal energy is a function of the state of the substance.AMSask (talk) 01:58, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, let's take a real example. I have a gram of vitrified water at absolute zero (or to close to that, that the difference doesn't matter). I prepared it by dropping liquid water mist drops at 0 C (273 K) onto a copper plate cooled with liquid helium, and when the water solidified so quickly that it didn't have time to crystallize, I collected the vitrified powder as solid water "glass" powder, and cooled it some more. Now, I compare this to a gram of pure ice at the same temp, which I prepared by letting it freeze into a perfect crystal of ice at 273 K, then cooling the ice crystal to 0 K.

Now, clearly I removed 79 cal less heat from the glass, since I didn't have to remove the heat of crystallization. But both specimens of 1 gram solid water are now at 0 K. So which one has the more thermal energy? Do they have zero thermal energy?? Are they the same since they are at the same temperature? Or different, because I removed more heat from the crystal than the glass. Clearly the glass has some residual entropy (the crystal has none, by the third law of thermodynamics), but does the glass have more thermal energy along with that entropy? That's a problem.
 * The atoms in the two substances do not have the same internal energy. There is a difference in potential energies. It seems to me that the atoms in the crystal would have less potential energy. So the crystal has less thermal energy if one is equating thermal energy to thermodynamic internal energy. AMSask (talk) 01:58, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Now for the fun: I heat up both samples, in a calorimeter until I have a gram of liquid water at 273 K (0 C). This time it takes 79 cal more heat to get the ice crystal to 0 C liquid than it does to get the glass to the same state. But in the end I have two absolutely identical samples of liquid water. Which one holds the more thermal energy? Are they the same (since they are the same substance)? Or do they differ by virtue of their different histories, and I know it, because I added 79 more cal to one of them from absolute zero, and I put a mark on that container, so I know which water sample was the one that had more heat added. Clearly, the heat capacity integral fails here. S B Harris 03:11, 12 September 2014 (UTC)]
 * The thermal energy that these substances contain does not depend on how much heat you added to them. It is a function of their thermodynamic state. Since they are identical, they both have the same thermal energies. You had to add 79 more calories to one of them because that substance began with 79 fewer calories of internal energy (i.e. less potential energy). AMSask (talk) 01:58, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Internal energy is a thermodynamic state function, and it has a number, like entropy. But "thermal energy" is not a state function. How much thermal energy is there in a gram of liquid water? How am I justified in "counting" that 79 cal of potential, given that I can remove it as heat in one path going to absolute zero, but not another? Which answer is correct? I don't SEE any obvious answer as to how much energy a gram of liquid water has, "by virtue of its temperature." How would you even discover THAT? Also, you gave no answer to how much thermal energy a gram of vitrified water has, at absolute zero. Is it zero? S  B Harris 19:07, 15 September 2014 (UTC)


 * So you disagree that the term "thermal energy" is used (by the Ency. Brit.,for example) to actually mean thermodynamic internal energy? If it is used that way, it is certainly a function of the thermodynamic state.  If it is used in one of the other two ways to refer only to the kinetic energy component of internal energy or to just the translational KE component, it would also be a function of the thermodynammic state.  If you want to suggest that thermal energy is not a function of state then you should find an authority for such as usage.


 * In your example, the amount of thermal energy in a gram of liquid water does not depend on its history. It depends on its thermodynamic state. But what it actually refers to depends on how you use it. As I said, there are three typical usages: 1. Internal energy: U 2. internal KE component of U 3. Translational KE component of U AMSask (talk) 00:11, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

I disagree with the use of the term to mean internal energy, because there already is a term for internal energy: “internal energy.” I don’t know what a “mean” internal energy could be that internal energy isn’t already. “Mean” suggests you average something out. With internal energy you add microscopic quantities of energy UP.
 * You can certainly disagree with it but that is how the term is used, at least by those who follow the Ency. Brit. usage. Where does the "mean" come from? Internal energy is not a mean energy. It is the total thermodynamic internal energy. For an ideal gas, the internal energy is the total internal kinetic energy which is the mean kinetic energy per particle multiplied by the number of particles.AMSask (talk) 05:43, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 * That’s not a helpful example, as there is no potential energy between atoms in this system, and no chemical bonds. Internal energy is (unfortunately) defined in various ways in thermo texts, but the most common way is to sum up all the kinetic and potential energies between atoms (since nuclear processes are usually not involved). So that includes latent heats and chemical bond energies. Wikipedia has an article on internal energy—why don’t you read it? Especially the part that has to do with absolute U and not just ∆U for closed systems: Internal_energy
 * In any case, the important thing about internal energy is that it is conserved, not what its absolute value is. One of my texts even says you can set it at zero if you like, since it is ∆U that is important in conservation equations, not absolute U. This allows the average text to simply define ∆U as δq – δw (closed system and absent electrical inputs or nuclear reactions inside the system) and leaves it at that. (My JA Campbell _Chemical Systems_ (1970) a book I loved as a student, never mentions E, only ∆E.) So you can really count any energy you like, so long as you don’t count any that change to some other kind that you don’t count. In a nuclear reactor you’d have to count some total mc^2 = U to make internal energy balance before you removed heat. In a chemical problem you would not. S B Harris 05:22, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Calling internal energy “thermal” is wrong, as there are many components of internal energy that are NOT thermal. Every time I do work upon an object (for example) I raise its internal energy, but not thermally. For example, I can bang on a bit of ice with a hammer, or compress it, or whatever, till it partly melts, but I haven’t added any heat. I did work. Nor did its temperature rise. I can also charge an (ideal) battery and raise its internal energy, but that’s not a thermal process either (it is chemical and electric, and the ideal battery doesn’t get any warmer). So deciding to call internal energy “thermal” is a bad idea for lots of processes that do change internal energy.
 * There is a difference between thermodynamic internal energy and other forms of energy that is internal to the substance, such as chemical or nuclear energy. The thermodynamic internal energy arises by virtue of temperature. Chemical and nuclear energy is independent of temperature. Thermal energy is NOT heat flow. It is the thermodynamic internal energy or a component of it. You can increase thermodynamic internal energy, and thereby its thermal energy, by doing work on it OR by adding heat flow. The result is an increase in the thermal energy. AMSask (talk) 05:43, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Again, how are you justified in deciding that? You are (as noted above) now on to attacking the wiki article internal energy which is well referenced. You are now arguing that (thermodynamic) internal energy and “thermal energy” are the same: that the last is merely another name for the first. And in the process, you’ve mis-defined internal energy, confusing it with CHANGE in internal energy for closed systems. There is no “by virtue of temperature” in phase change, as the temperature doesn’t change. You want to call the energy you add by pounding on ice “thermal energy”, but I can pound on a substance and change the chemical structure, too.
 * I am not deciding that. The Encyclopedia Britannica says that this is what thermal energy means: internal energy of a substance that exists by virtue of temperature. It is one way that the term is used. AMSask (talk) 01:20, 21 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Can you provide a reference any authority that chemical and nuclear energy is included in the thermodynamic internal energy? If a release of chemical energy was simply a rearrangement of thermodynamic internal energy, an exothermic reaction that does work would reduce internal energy. But that is not the case.  When an exothermic chemical reaction occurs in a system, there is heat flow into the system. So the energy released in the chemical reaction is obviously is not part of the original thermodynamic internal energy.AMSask (talk) 01:20, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The reason thermo texts define ∆U as δq – δw is only because they want to work with closed systems and ignore U. But in defining thermodynamic internal energy we are not talking about ∆U, we are talking about U. With U, not ∆U (closed), chemical potentials are added. And you must add them because I can add heat to hydrogen and nitrogen and make ammonia, and this must increase the system’s internal energy in a way that does not show up as a temperature increase. Whether I ever get the heat or work back or not, depends on what I decide to do with my ammonia. But it’s an endothermic reaction. The energy I added as heat (Haber process) is now locked in broken nitrogen and hydrogen chemical bonds (which are stronger than the new ammonia bonds), just as in ice where the heat I added is now locked in the potential of broken hydrogen bonds.

For similar reasons it’s also a bad idea to decide that some PART of an increase in internal energy is “thermal”, since how do you know what part is “thermal”? There’s no way to decide. Once the ice has melted, you don’t know if it was by heating it or by banging or rubbing it. Or putting it in a dielectric chamber and subjecting it to an alternating E field. The end product is the same, and you’ve already agreed that the history of how it got that way is not only unimportant, but unfair to require. And yet some sites on the web have decided that “thermal energy” is what heat becomes after it’s passed into an object and is no longer heat because it’s not in transit. And as though, when it’s “in” an object, you can still tell it is “thermal” energy and not some other kind.
 * It does not matter whether I melt 1 kg of ice by banging it or by causing heat flow into the ice. 330KJ of heat flow or 330KJ of work will melt the ice and the melted ice in both cases will have the same thermodynamic internal energy and, therefore, the same "thermal energy". A body does not possess heat any more than it possesses work. It possesses internal energy. AMSask (talk) 01:20, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Your position is at odds with the cited references. It does not matter whether an increase in internal energy is the result of heat flow or work. It is the same increase in thermal energy.AMSask (talk) 05:43, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 * You don't have any good cited references. Hyper physics and Britannica probably read Wikipedia. S  B Harris 18:21, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Other sites declare that heat is “thermal energy” in transit, but only WHILE it is in transit, and thus, only while it is classic heat. That’s actually the only definition that I can agree with and that makes any sense, but it’s a pretty short one (I don’t know if it’s worth more than a paragraph). And also you need to make sure the reader understands that heat and thermal energy in this case BOTH go away once the transfer stops. And after that, they become internal energy, and NOT any longer thermal energy. There is no static thermal energy by any definition that is scientifically useful.
 * Can you provide a reference that uses heat in this way? Heat is energy transfer. It is the energy transferred by means other than mechanical work.AMSask (talk) 05:43, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's what heat is. But that's not what thermal energy is. It's hard to say what thermal energy is. Various people have various ideas. S  B Harris 05:22, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Some definitions of thermal energy decide to add up (integrate) the heat input into an object and continue to call that “thermal energy” even after it has been added, so that (in this definition) an object can contain (supposedly) contain static thermal energy. But it’s not safe to do that in many situations, because (as noted) heat can change into many types of energy after it is added and you can’t tell by temperature or by any other means what part of the internal energy of an object got there by means of heating it. That’s true of heat-absorbing chemical reactions, for example. There are also ways that work can leave a system when heat was put into it, as for example when you heat a gas at constant pressure. That (of course) takes more heat to change the temperature than heating it at constant volume, but only because some heat was transformed into work. In all cases, adding up the thermal energy added, in that case, does NOT give you the internal energy change. That’s how students get into trouble.
 * Again, can you provide a reference to a definition of 'thermal energy' used in this way? AMSask (talk) 05:43, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 * No, that is one I ran across on the web and can’t find again. However, it is implicit in the idea that "thermal energy" is the energy that something has "by virtue of its temperature." That essentially defines heat capacity. But thermal energy is not the energy associated with heat capacities, since they change depending on work parameters. S  B Harris 05:22, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

In some heat transfer texts, in solid or liquid systems where volume changes and system work inputs and outputs are small enough to neglect, and also chemical energies and phase change (latent) heats are (somehow) accounted for, or don’t exist, you can pretend that all internal energy changes are due to heating, so that heat acts almost like a fluid which is conserved and can be handled as such, even when it stops flowing. In that case, “total history of heat flow” sometimes loosely gets conflated with internal energy (since ∆U = ∆Q when all other energy sources and sinks are zero), but it’s always a bad habit. Energy is always conserved, but heat, in too many cases, is not.
 * Again, do you have a cite?AMSask (talk) 05:43, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, in fact: my favorite heat transfer text Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer, Incropera and DeWitt (4th Ed, John Wiley & Sons, 1996) uses “thermal energy” that way. They say (p14) that a change in internal energy consists of a sensible or THERMAL [energy] component, a latent [energy] component (which they don’t define as thermal), a chemical component, and a nuclear component. But they go on in page 15 to say that “if potential and kinetic energy effects can be neglected, as is almost always the case in heat transfer analysis, changes in energy storage are due only to changes in the internal thermal and/or, in the case of phase change, latent energies.” That’s a direct quote. So Incropera and DeWitt ordinarily don’t consider latent heat as “thermal energy” or “internal thermal energy.” They do consider all kinds of energy (including chemical) to be included in thermodynamic internal energy.
 * Finally, let me add at this point that it should be obvious that chemical potential energy is and must be a part of thermodynamic internal energy, because chemical potential energy is a part of enthalpy, H. You have enthalpies of formation for various chemical substances (standard conditions) and changes in enthalpy for chemical reactions. And yet enthalpy and internal energy differ only by a PV term, not any chemical terms. So if chemistry in a system changes H it must change U also, since the only difference between them is PV work. QED.
 * But that puts you in a bind, because if you have to admit that chemical potential is a part of internal energy, and internal energy is the same as thermal energy you have to say that chemical potential energy in an object (like a charged battery or a stick of dynamite) is a part of its thermal energy. And then we’re taking nonsense. Chemical energy doesn’t change to thermal; in your definition, it’s thermal already. But clearly that is wrong. So you have to go back to the drawing board. S B Harris 05:22, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Definitions of thermal energy that rely on “kinetic energy” or “translation kinetic energy” (aren’t they the same thing?) are clearly wrongheaded, as both of these things are directly proportional to temperature, and clearly neither internal energy change nor heating need have anything to do with temperature change, as all the phase changes examples above show. And we talked about how heat capacities can change due to external work or chemical storage. The whole point of potential energy is that it doesn’t change T because it’s potential and NOT kinetic.
 * When ice melts it absorbs heat flow. Its potential energy changes but its kinetic energy does not. Its thermal energy increases because the reverse process (freezing) causes heat flow to leave the water. AMSask (talk) 05:43, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Clearly I gave you too easy an example. When carbon black is compressed tremendously, it decreases volume (since it increases density), absorbs heat, and turns into diamond. Its internal energy has increased because we did work on it, and it absorbed energy as heat. But by your definition, the diamond has not only that much more internal energy, but also exactly that much more “thermal energy” than the carbon black that we started with. Are you satisfied with defining thermal energy that way? I can even get (some of) the heat back out: as diamonds are thermodynamically unstable at 1 atm (though kinetically they are very stable), I can get your carbon back by simply mechanically pounding on the diamond (or grinding it if I must) until all bonds are broken and it is reduced to powdered carbon black. In the process it expands, doing work (though not as much work as it took for form it, since the volume change is the same but the pressure is less!), and releases heat (less than it absorbed, since again, it doesn’t have to absorb as much heat to expand at reduced pressure). Now we’re back to the starting state. You say internal energy is thermal energy (same thing), so this is like ice melting. I disagree. There’s nothing thermal about what we just did. There’s nothing thermal about chemical potential or chemical bonds. You only get thermal energy when the bonds are made and the potential energy of that changes from one energy type to another. S B Harris 05:22, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Break
A bulk property? I can put heat into an ice cube and melt some of it. The temperature doesn't change and the mean kinetic energy of the particles doesn't change either (since that's what temperature IS). But I have increased its internal energy, have I not? That heat energy went SOMEWHERE, did it not? The internal energy must have increased. So have I increased its "thermal energy"? You see the definitional problem here. You can't connect internal energy directly with either temperature or kinetic energy. Some of internal energy is potential energy. But it gets put in, and taken out, as heat. Is that part "thermal energy" or not? The hyperphysics definition completely finesses that problem by going for a system of free particles. S B Harris 06:11, 5 September 2014 (UTC)


 * This is the problem with having a Wikipedia page on "thermal energy", a term that can mean different things to different people in different contexts. The Ency. Brit. definition includes potential energy but the Hyperphysics usage does not. In your example, the liquid water at 0C has more internal energy than ice at the same temperature. One can get more heat flow from the water than from the ice for a given temperature change.  But there is definitely a common usage of "thermal" that refers only to kinetic energy. In nuclear physics, one speaks about thermal neutrons and fast neutrons. Neutrons do not have potential energy, so the term "thermal" refers to their kinetic energy. If the average kinetic energy of the neutrons is on the order of one electron volt they are considered thermal.AMSask (talk) 06:16, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree with your first sentence. Personally, I think this article is not reliably sourced and should probably be deleted.  Encyclopedias are not reliable sources in wikipedia's view, and hyperphysics even less so.   Waleswatcher  ( talk ) 12:11, 6 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Which is why I started the section "Thermal Energy is not a scientific term". It is, nevertheless, a term that seems to be used in one of three ways: synonymously with U (thermodynamic internal energy, which includes potential energy due to inter-particle forces) OR synonymously with U - PE (ie. the average KE per particle) OR synonymously with  (average translational KE per particle. If it is used the first way, it serves only to confuse: we should simply refer to it as U: thermodynamic internal energy. If it is used in either the latter two ways, it appears to be simply a substitute for KE or Translational KE.AMSask (talk) 00:33, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

reliable sources
Encylopedia Brittanica is a tertiary source, not a secondary source. It's not a reliable source (by wiki's standards WP:RS) for anything, let alone the main topic of an article. The same goes (even more) for hyperphysics. Are there in fact any reliable (by wiki's standards) sources for "thermal energy"? If not, the article should be deleted. If so, please add them to the lede. If "thermal energy" is really a concept in physics, then it would be at the basis of statistical mechanics and thermodynamics and be discussed in every text on the subject.  Waleswatcher  ( talk ) 12:21, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

No reliable sources have been added, presumably because there are none. This article probably should to be deleted entirely, but short of that, I intend to continue to delete the unsourced material.  Waleswatcher  ( talk ) 16:21, 1 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Done.  Waleswatcher  ( talk ) 15:12, 2 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Though not a rigorous term in itself, it is widely used and referenced by the Thermodynamic temperature article among many others, so rather than deleting this article we need to use it to state how the term is sometimes used. I'm taking a stab at that in the lead.  DavRosen (talk) 01:54, 23 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I regularly use the concept of thermal energy and find it more satisfactory than heat in many situations. For example, I prefer to say "friction converts kinetic energy to thermal energy" rather than "heat" because heat is only a transient phenomenon. I take my lead from Robert Resnick’s and David Halliday’s textbook PHYSICS (Combined edition), Wiley International. For example, in Section 31-5 the authors write:


 * If the stone falls in water ... its speed eventually becomes constant, which means that the kinetic energy no longer increases. The potential energy that is steadily being made available as the stone falls then appears as thermal energy in the stone and the surrounding water. It is the viscous, friction-like drag of the water on the surface of the stone that stops the stone from accelerating, and it is at this surface that thermal energy appears.


 * Considering physicists and educators of the stature of Resnick and Halliday use the concept of thermal energy I can see no case for Wikipedia’s article to be deleted. Dolphin  ( t ) 02:57, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Update
Is our technology capable of determining whether or not thermal dynamic energy is a viable source? Sustainability plus stability are the two factors are far more important. BlueFireSnake (talk) 20:10, 10 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Far more important than what? Dolphin  ( t ) 04:30, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Convert to a disambiguation page?
I proposed this article for deletion because, as it was written before, it was both wrong and unsourced (and it remained that way for years). As it's written now it's OK in the sense that it is not wrong, but given that its content is that "thermal energy" is used as a loose synonym for some other things (all with their own wiki pages), plus a little bit of physics about the differences between those things, should we just convert it to a DAB page?  Waleswatcher  ( talk ) 14:29, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
 * By the way, to be clear I think we should convert it to a DAB page and I will do so after a reasonable time unless there are objections (in which case let's discuss it and try to come to a consensus).  Waleswatcher  ( talk ) 19:51, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
 * As I did originally, I continue to completely agree with the conversion to DAB. --MaoGo (talk) 11:20, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * No, it is a notable subject that has a coherent definition and is used in many if not most texts in many areas of physics. Kbrose (talk) 11:54, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Kbrose, if that's the case, why has no one ever provided said "coherent definition"? I've been asking for reliable sources on this for literally four years and they have never been provided, nor has such a definition emerged (the one on this page a few months back was nonsensical and unsourced).  In the AfD discussion the problem and the need to convert to a DAB became even more clear - every editor that was against deletion provided a different definition.


 * In the AfD you yourself proposed two contradictory "definitions". First, you asserted a definition is provided by (dS/dU)V,N = T–1. But in that equation U is internal energy, T is temperature, and S is entropy, so this equation obviously cannot serve to define thermal energy as anything other than one of those.


 * Later, you asserted "That also implies that it is perfectly to ok to define thermal energy as the product of temperature and a change in entropy, as stated above." That is not what was stated above, because the "d"s in the equation you wrote earlier are crucial.  The product of temperature and entropy is just that - the product of two well-defined thermodynamic quantities. It is not a form of energy in any useful sense.


 * Neither of those assertions was supported by any reliable sources (or any sources at all, actually).  Waleswatcher  ( talk ) 12:54, 27 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Another comment. In 2010, on this talk page, Kbrose wrote: "I rewrote the current article as it stands (it was redirect to internal energy for some time) and I understand your point, concern, and plight. Indeed, you are not alone in this view. However, it is difficult to find reliable references that support the view" (my bold).  Indeed.  Waleswatcher  ( talk ) 13:09, 27 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Comment. If this page is converted into a DAB page, don't overlook WP:FIXDABLINKS. As matters stand, turning it into a DAB page will cause User:DPL bot to report about 500 WP:INTDAB errors on top of the 8,600 it already knows about. Narky Blert (talk) 09:28, 28 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Looking at that, it seems I would have to manually change hundreds of incoming links. I'm willing to put some time and effort into this, but that's asking too much.  Is there any way around that?  Waleswatcher  ( talk ) 12:54, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Here's a sandbox with what I intend to do to this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Waleswatcher/sandbox. Comments?  Waleswatcher  ( talk ) 13:16, 30 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Since there exist reliable sources (some are given on this talk page in addition to any in the article) who use the term "thermal energy" and thereby attempt to give it some conceptual meaning (however loose or ultimately misguided it may be), therefore it is a valid topic for an article, not just a disambiguation page. It is not up to us as editors to determine that they "shouldn't" use that term because it isn't rigorous enough or that we (or other sources) disagree with their definition (or every definition) or find it to be problematic or even self-contradictory.  A disambiguation page is completely unhelpful to a person who has heard the term thermal energy and would like to know how it is used or what it is purported to describe.  We can't completely sweep the term "thermal energy" under the rug, no matter how problematic it may ultimately be. DavRosen (talk) 13:36, 30 April 2018 (UTC)


 * The problem is that different reliable sources (of which there are actually only a few) use the term differently. Some use it only in the context of ideal gasses, where it is identical to Internal energy.  Others use it to refer to kT.  Others use it in the loose sense of energy associated with a thermodynamic system.  I'm not sure there are even two sources that use it the same way - and even if there were, if we focused on that meaning we'd be ignoring the other uses.  Lastly, the change I am proposing preserves essentially all the content that is in the current version of the article (the only thing I'm leaving out is the historical note about Joule, which in any case doesn't really belong there or could be added to another article).   Waleswatcher  ( talk ) 13:47, 30 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Your points in your first few sentences here are good ones (not just for editors on a talk page), so they may belong in the content of this thermal energy article. On reading the article the reader should be aware of these inconsistencies and reasons not to use the term in any rigorous sense -- there is no place better to learn these things than the present article.  The lack of an article is not an effective way to convey this information.DavRosen (talk) 13:56, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, that is the way the current article is written, and perhaps you have a point. But I still think it would be better as a DAB page for two reasons:  (1) it seems to me that's the style of wikipedia - not to have articles on vague concepts that can refer to multiple things, but rather to use DAB pages, and (2) because I think a DAB page would be clearer and easier to use than the current article for a reader looking for more details.  Waleswatcher  ( talk ) 15:05, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The difference is that when one hits a typical DAB page, the reader is expected to recognize and select which topic they are searching for. In the case of thermal energy, there is practically no basis for the average reader to know whether they should select heat, internal energy, or the others, and once they do, it still won't be immediately obvious in what sense the selected topic is or isn't similar to the term or concept "thermal energy", nor certainly in what sense the other topics are similar to "thermal energy" unless they read all of the articles one at a time looking for mentions of "thermal energy" and attempt to make sense of it all.  In other words, discussing what is or may be meant by "thermal energy" is a topic in itself -- not something the reader can get via a DAB page. DavRosen (talk) 17:43, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

This page is so bad...
This page is so badly written that I am using it as an example for the CRAAP Test for studying sources on the Internet. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.30.225.230 (talk) 00:24, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree. The main problem here is that there is no generally accepted thermodynamic defined term called "thermal energy" as we can see.  So each contributor is trying to assert different definitions of the term and the result is confusing.


 * The article should make it clear in the first paragraph that there is no general consensus as to what the term "thermal energy" means.


 * There are at least three different usages of the term. If one uses "thermal energy" to mean "heat content" (e.g. as a measure of the heat flow per degree Kelvin temperature change per mole or kg of substance at constant volume) then one is effectively using "thermal energy" as a measure of internal energy. If that is how it is used, why use "thermal energy" at all? If one uses "thermal energy" to refer to that part of internal energy of a substance that contributes to temperature, then one is effectively using "thermal energy" as a measure of the average translational kinetic energy of the constituent molecules of the substance.  This is how, for example, the term is used in the Hyperphysics site at Georgia State University: ( http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Kinetic/eqpar.html#c2 ). In that case, a unit of liquid water and a unit of water ice at 0C have the same thermal energy.  Finally, one could use the term "thermal energy" to refer to the total kinetic energy of the molecules of a substance. This ignores potential energy (ie. due to inter-molecular separation or molecular vibration) so it differs from U, internal energy. I note that the statement "the internal energy is the sum total of the gas's independent particles' kinetic energies" is incorrect.  AMSask (talk) 19:52, 18 December 2020 (UTC)


 * I have avoided trying edit the page since it seemed to be owned by editors who know best.


 * The term 'thermal energy' has been used sporadically, even by such great physicists as James Clerk Maxwell. As observed, it is not a standardly defined term in thermodynamics.


 * I am not interested in trying to fix the page, because I see difficulties in such an attempt.Chjoaygame (talk) 20:19, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Reason for undo of good faith edit
I have undone this good faith edit.

Heat transfer does not distinguish kinetic from potential energy.Chjoaygame (talk) 16:12, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Industrial thermal energy
This https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thermal_energy&type=revision&diff=1104461578&oldid=1102799939 edit posts a topic rather different from the main direction of this article. This article is about a technical term that is used loosely in several topics of physics, to refer several different manifestations of energy. These uses of the word 'thermal' are quite abstract and are rather different from its use in the new edit, which is about large scale industry, a far more concrete topic. I suggest that the new edit should be moved to form a stub of a new industry-oriented article. It is evident that the editor who posted the new edit expects that there will be more comparable industrial projects.Chjoaygame (talk) 07:38, 17 August 2022 (UTC)