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smartypants123
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Since thermal energy is the vibration of molecules and sound is too, what is the difference? And why exactly do atoms radiate different energies as a result of vibrations?
smartypants123 said:Since thermal energy is the vibration of molecules and sound is too, what is the difference? And why exactly do atoms radiate different energies as a result of vibrations?
So i learned that sound energy is when molecules vibrate and resonate at a certain frequency, and those frequencies vibrate other atoms all the way to our ears. And I also learned that thermal energy is also the vibration of molecules, and the hotter a substance is, the more it vibrates. So if both energies are very different but come from the same source, how can that be? What differentiates them?davenn said:Since you have marked your thread with an "I" tag, indicating you are a university undergraduate education level.
What have your research efforts shown for you so far ?
smartypants123 said:So if both energies are very different but come from the same source
smartypants123 said:What differentiates them?
EspressoDan said:
I'm sorry and I know your trying to be helpful in this case but can you just answer my question rather than replying with some of your own?davenn said:you didn't answer my specific questions
thanks for the detailed explanation. I think I get it now. (:Justintruth said:The difference is that the thermal energy cannot carry information but sound can.
The reason is that the energy distribution of thermal energy is random and the distributions we call sound energy are not.
"Sound" implies one class of distributions of energy across the particles in a gas and "thermal" implies another, different, class of distributions.
Thermal energy implies that the particles are distributed in space randomly and that the velocity directions are distributed randomly. The velocity magnitudes are distributed consistent with the Boltzmann distribution which is also derived from assumptions that the distribution is random.
Sound energy implies that there are compressions and rarefications of the particles and there is an equation (a wave equation) that describes the distribution and that a small program could use this wave equation to output the positions and velocities of the particle A program that output the random particles position and velocities would have to have each velocity and position written into it so that it would be longer than just the list of positions and velocities.
In this sense "something can be said" in the form of a wave equation for sound but "nothing can be said" of the random particles except that they are random.
With respect to thermal energy, one can actually say that one can carry information with it in a sense. For example if you heat one end of a tube and then cool it and have a variable time between the heating and cooling then the heat can conduct down the tube and be measured at the other end and interpreted as a signal. However the term "thermal" usually means "at equilibrium". So if by "thermal" you mean "at equilibrium" then you cannot carry information. When we heated one end of the tube we took the system out of equilibrium.
If by "thermal" you mean any system not at equilibrium then you have a big problem as it turns out even sound distributions could then be thermal. Sound emerging from thermal energy could occur but it violates the second law of thermodynamics. The other way, sound becoming thermal, happens all the time when a sound "dies down". Sound distributions actually become "thermal" distributions when the chaotic dynamics of the air "randomizes" the distribution. Thus a sound wave in a gas will eventually result in a gas that is "thermal" but at a higher temperature. The initial gas with the sound wave in it had some of its energy in thermal energy and some in sound energy but the sound energy becomes thermal energy adding increasing or "heating" the thermal energy, which in systems with positive heat capacity causes an increase in temperature.
smartypants123 said:I'm sorry and I know your trying to be helpful in this case but can you just answer my question rather than replying with some of your own?
davenn said:the idea of that is to help you learn ... if you just get spoonfed everything you learn nothing and so that isn't the way we work here at PF
We help the person to help themselves by giving hints and posing further questions
Anyway the response @Justintruth didn't really get you along the path as intended and he /she needs to learn not to respond like that
you really should try and answer the questions I posed so that you can work it out a little better to see the clear differences
Thermal energy is the energy that is generated by the movement of particles within a substance. It is also known as heat energy and is measured in units of joules (J).
Sound energy is the energy produced by vibrations that travel through a medium, such as air or water. It is also known as acoustic energy and is measured in units of joules (J).
The main difference between thermal and sound energy is that thermal energy is related to the movement of particles within a substance, while sound energy is related to the movement of particles through a medium. Additionally, thermal energy can be felt as heat, while sound energy can be heard as sound waves.
Both thermal and sound energy are forms of kinetic energy, meaning they involve movement. They also both involve the transfer of energy from one object to another, either through heat or sound waves.
Yes, thermal energy can be converted into sound energy. This is because thermal energy can cause particles to vibrate, which can then create sound waves. However, not all thermal energy will result in sound energy, as it depends on the specific conditions and materials involved.