What is Temperature
Here you see a circuit powered by a battery and connected through a light bulb. This section of the circuit is made from copper foil. We can put a cut into the foil to make this circuit incomplete. Taking advantage of the thermal expansion properties of copper, we can place some candles under the foil to provide enough heat to expand the foil and complete the circuit again! Many materials, like metals, expand when you heat them. But other materials, like polymers, shrink when heated. The macroscopic properties of both of these materials are highly dependent on temperature. The difference in the macroscopic behavior of these two materials is determined by very different microscopic structure. Statistical Mechanics is the method used to describe and predict behavior at the macro-scale based on statistical models of microscopic behavior. The first step to understanding the power of Statistical Mechanics, is to use this method to define and understand temperature in terms of ...