Question: Do atoms have a temperature

Krishna Mooroogen answered on 2 Jun 2020:

Hi! great question! and the short answer is yes! When we talk about temperature, we are actually talking about energy and all things have energy including atoms! When we talk about something being hot or cold, what we’re really talking about is how much energy it has.

All atoms ‘vibrate’ with a certain energy and we can describe this energy by referring to their temperature. In science we measure temperature in a unit called Kelvin, If an Atom had a temperature of zero Kelvin it would not vibrate at all but it is very hard to cool an atom to zero. This area of science is called thermodynamics and is very interesting and important for a range of things.

Energy comes in many forms, kinetic energy (movement), thermal energy, gravitational energy all sorts! We talk about different energy depending on the type of situation we’re looking at.

Honestly we could talk all day about temperature!