Luke+J

=__//**Thermal Energy **//__=

What is Thermal Energy?

Every single atom in every single object is alive with movement. The total sum of this kinetic and potential energy that comes from these tiny particles is called thermal energy. It is the energy due to the specific position or movement of the particles within a substance. The measurement of how fast these atoms is called temperature, and is represented in Fahrenheit or Celsius. The faster these particles move, the hotter an object gets, and the slower the particles move, the cooler the object gets. Heat always likes to flow from a warmer substance to a cooler substance because the atoms with more kinetic energy (warmer) collide with the atoms with less kinetic energy (cooler). The more atoms that are moving, the larger the amount of heat will be transferred. There are many examples that you could find everyday, including fires, freezers and windmills (see Figure 1). Although thermal energy is not usually visible, we can still feel or see the effects that come from it, such as the red piece of metal around the bottom of the stove in the picture of the boiling water in the pan (see Figure 1). The water molecules are moving faster, and the water becomes hotter and eventually boils. Other uses of thermal energy such as the boiling water is used in our everyday lives so that we can live more easily.





How does Thermal Energy apply to the real world?

Thermal energy is used for many different things for cooking, medical purposes or just simply warming up. A good example of how this form of energy is used in our everyday lives is fire (see Figure 3). Besides the sun, fire was one of the oldest forms of energy known to man. It is used today for many uses, from roasting marshmallows to performing jobs. Fire is a chemical process in which there has to be oxygen, heat and fuel. The oxygen atoms bond with combine with hydrogen and carbon to make water and carbon dioxide, a process known as oxygen and is necessary to create fire. The heat now can be transferred to other, cooler objects, like a marshmallow. The heat of the fire will speed up the atoms in other objects close to it, and will melt the object if it becomes too hot. The fire will keep burning until its fuel (the logs) turn to ash. Fire is just one of the many examples used to help our daily lives.



Experiment!


 * **Name of Subject** || **Temperature of hand (°C)** || **Untouched color of ring** || **Color after put on hand** ||
 * Luke || 31.5 || Greenish yellow || Blueish purple ||
 * Raiden || 33 || Greenish yellow || Purple ||
 * Ryan || 33.6 || Greenish yellow || Greenish pinkish purple ||
 * Lindsay || 34.7 || Greenish yellow || Purple ||
 * Kaitlyn || 32.1 || Greenish yellow || Greenish purple ||

An experiment was performed to see if there was a correlation between the heat of a hand and the color a mood ring will change when it comes into contact with the hand. Above is a table  that displays the results of the experiment. A thermometer, five mood rings and five hands were used to complete this experiment. The temperature of five different hands were recorded in degrees Celsius using the thermometer . The color of five untouched mood rings were also recorded. The rings were placed on each of the hands and after one minute, their new color was recorded. There was also a relationship between the heat of the hand and the color of the mood ring that was found. The higher the temperature of the hand, the deeper purple the ring will get. The cooler the temperature of the hand, the greener the mood ring will get. It's actually a lot like the UV spectrum, shortened to the acronym Roy G. Biv (Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet), which orders the colors by the amount of energy required to create the colors, with red using the least amount of energy and violet using the most.