Temperature

How it is used

Temperature rises, falls, is measured with a thermometer and is kept constant in experiments. In gas law calculations you must use kelvin: add 273 to the Celsius value. Write 300 K, not '300 °K', and read it as 'three hundred kelvin'.

Example sentences

1. Keep the temperature of the water bath at 40 °C throughout the experiment.

2. When the temperature of the gas rises at constant volume, its pressure increases.

Common collocations

• room temperature
• temperature difference
• temperature rise
• absolute temperature
• constant temperature

Related terms

• heatEnergy that flows from a hotter object to a colder one because of the temperature difference between them. Like all energy, it is measured in joules (J).
• absolute zeroThe lowest possible temperature, 0 K or −273.15 °C, at which particles have the least energy they can possibly have. It can be approached but never actually reached.
• ideal gas lawThe equation pV = nRT, which links the pressure, volume, temperature and amount of an ideal gas. Real gases follow it closely at low pressure and high temperature.
• specific heat capacityThe energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 kg of a substance by 1 K (or 1 °C). Water has a high value, about 4200 J/(kg·K).
• pressureThe force acting on each unit of area of a surface, found by dividing force by area. It is measured in pascals (Pa), where one pascal is one newton per square metre.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

• temperature · Software Engineering
• temperature · Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
• temperature · Medicine
• temperature · Nursing

More terms: Heat and Thermodynamics

• first law of thermodynamics
• entropy
• heat transfer
• latent heat