Compare and contrast thermal energy and temperature

Thermal energy refers to the total internal energy of a substance, therefore it is the sum of the kinetic energy (energy of motion) and potential energy (energy of the bonds) of all the molecules inside the substance:

where KE is the kinetic energy and PE the potential energy.

On the other hand, the temperature of a substance is a measure of the average kinetic energy of the particles in the substance; it is related to the kinetic energy by:

where

KE is the kinetic energy

k is the Boltzmann constant

T is the absolute temperature of the substance

Therefore, the basic difference between thermal energy and temperature is that:

- The temperature refers to the average kinetic energy of the single particle (so it does not depend on the number of particles), while the thermal energy refers to the total energy of all the particles (so it does depend on the number of particles).