Temperature

Temperature is a physical property of a system that underlies the common notions of hot and cold; something that is hotter has the greater temperature. Temperature is one of the principal parameters of thermodynamics. The temperature of a system is defined as simply the average energy of microscopic motions of a single particle in the system per degree of freedom. For a solid, these microscopic motions are principally the vibrations of the constituent atoms about their sites in the solid. For an ideal monatomic gas, the microscopic motions are the translational motions of the constituent gas particles. For multiatomic gas vibrational and rotational motion should be included too.

Temperature is measured with thermometers that may be calibrated to a variety of temperature scales. In most of the world (except for the United States, Jamaica, and a few other countries), the Celsius scale is used for most temperature measuring purposes. The entire scientific world (the U.S. included) measures temperature using the Celsius scale, and thermodynamic temperature using the Kelvin scale (which is just a simple shifting of the Celsius scale). Many engineering fields in the U.S., especially high-tech ones, also use the Kelvin and Celsius scales. The bulk of the U.S. however, (its lay people, industry, popular meteorology, and government) relies upon the Fahrenheit scale. Other engineering fields in the U.S. also rely upon the Rankine scale (a shifted Fahrenheit scale) when working in thermodynamic-related disciplines such as combustion.