In
thermal physics, thermal energy is the
energy portion of a
system that increases with its
temperature. In a loose sense, "thermal energy" is a term often used to describe the energy content of a system related to
heating effects, e.g. temperature increase or decrease. In
thermodynamics, thermal energy is the
internal energy present in a system in a state of
thermodynamic equilibrium by virtue of its temperature. The term is not widely used, however, in a rigorous sense, owing to the result that the phrase "thermal (
heat) energy" is counter-intuitive. That is, heat can only be defined as any spontaneous flow of energy (energy in transit) from one object to another, caused by a difference in temperature between two objects; thus, an object cannot posess "heat". This is explained by the
second law of thermodynamics. Hence, by extrapolation, it is difficult to define quantities of heat energy (thermal energy). In isolated cases, however, a few definitions do exist.
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