Introduction
Video Course
Science Topics
Diagnostic Tests
Physics Flashcards
Orgo Mechanisms
Question Server
Physiology Puzzles
Writing Section
Verbal Reasoning
Web Links
WikiPremed Bundle

Contact Us

Log In
Cart Contents
Checkout

Integrated SequencePhysics Chemistry Organic Biology
Heat and Temperature
Zeroth Law
Temperature scales
Thermal Expansion
Heat capacity
Transmission of heat

Web Resources



  click if a link is broken



Special points of emphasis

Heat and Temperature

The Ideal Gas and Kinetic Theory

The Second Law of Thermodynamics and Heat Engines

Let us take a moment to appreciate the importance of the Kelvin scale, the absolute temperature scale.

The Kelvin temperature is a central concept to emply in understanding the behavior of an ideal gas at both at the macrostate level and at the particle level. In thermodynamics, the macrostate refers to the point of view of the quantities you measure in the laboratory such as the pressure, volume and temperature. The particle level refers to the point of view of the particles themselves. Often we will be using the macrostate to infer the particle level, and vice-versa.

Because for an ideal gas, the temperature on the Kelvin scale is proportional to the product of the pressure and the volume, the Kelvin scale can be obtained via the macroscopic equation of state for the ideal gas (all gases expand by 1/273 of their volume at 0oC for each degree the are heated above this temperature). Furthermore, because the internal energy of an ideal gas is proportional to its temperature, we can use the Kelvin temperature to reference internal energy changes in the context of the First Law of Thermodynamics.

The Kelvin temperature is also important in the domain of Kinetic Theory, which is the part of thermodynamics in which that is concerned with the view of the gas particles themselves as a statistical distribution. For a sample of ideal gas, viewed at the particle level, the Kelvin temperature describes the kinetic energy of average particle.



The WikiPremed MCAT Course is a free comprehensive course in the undergraduate level general sciences. Undergraduate level physics, chemistry, organic chemistry and biology are presented by this course as a unified whole within a spiraling curriculum.

Please read our policies on privacy and shipping & returns.  Contact Us.
MCAT is a registered trademark of the Association of American Medical Colleges, which does not endorse the WikiPremed Course.


Creative Commons License
The work of WikiPremed is published under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 License. There are elements of work here, such as a subset of the images in the archive from WikiPedia, that originated as GNU General Public License works, so take care to follow the unique stipulations of that license in printed reproductions. You can use the resources here for commercial or non-commercial purposes, but please give attribution and a link to the production credits and edit history of the resource. For the works here which began as my individual work, please attribute "John Wetzel, an author at wikipremed.com".