Mistake Master
Mistake Master · AP Chemistry · Unit 3 · Step-Through Animation
Temperature Is Average Kinetic Energy
You'll learnthat temperature is the average kinetic energy of particles, not their speed.
A thermometer in a flask of gas is not reading a speed. It is reading the average kinetic energy of the particles, and that one substitution decides every question in this topic. Twelve short steps; press Next for each one.
temperature is average kinetic energy · never a speed
Before you start
What you're looking at
A sealed box of nitrogen at 300 K, its molecules moving in straight lines and bouncing off the walls.
The question
What does a thermometer actually measure about those moving particles?
Step 1 / 12