Heat: Cause or Effect of Vibrating Atoms?

[BL4CKB0X97]

I was thinking about fire last night and a question came to mind. Probably easy, but I'm not sure of the answer.

Is heat the cause or effect of atoms vibrating?

For heat to be hot, the atoms must be vibrating fast,but at the same time for atoms to vibrating fast they must be hot.

I know I'm going to face palm, but I need to stop thinking about it.Hence the post.

 

[Drakkith]

Heat is technically a particular way of transferring energy from one system to another. Wikipedia's article gives a good description:

In physics, heat is the amount of energy flowing from one body to another spontaneously due to their temperature difference, or by any means other than through work or the transfer of matter.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]} The transfer can be by contact between the source and the destination body, as in conduction; or by radiation between remote bodies; or by way of an intermediate fluid body, as in convective circulation; or by a combination of these.

So touching a cold object to a warmer object transfers energy to the colder object through conduction, and this transfer of energy is called heat. It's a bit different than the use of the word in everyday language.

Is heat the cause or effect of atoms vibrating?

For heat to be hot, the atoms must be vibrating fast,but at the same time for atoms to vibrating fast they must be hot.

Given the above description of heat, it would probably be more appropriate to say that heat causes atoms to either vibrate more or less than they were prior to the transfer of energy to or from the object. Heat raises or lowers the temperature of an object and temperature is a measure of an object's internal energy. One of the ways this energy is stored in the object is in the vibration, rotation, and other random motions of its atoms and molecules. Adding or removing energy will alter how much these atoms and molecules move about.

 

[BL4CKB0X97]

Thank you