“Oh my dear, I say, I have taken you be surprise,” Colon said, watching as a myriad of
emotions flit across the face of the young woman he held in his brawny
arms. “You’re the most beautiful woman I
have ever seen in my life, but I want you to know that it is not only your
beauty that has drawn me to you.” He
paused, reflecting, and then added, “ Lord, I sound such a fool. . . . to think
that you, such a ravishing creature,
might consider a plain, ordinary man
like me, and become Lady Falcon’s Nest.”
Catherine looked up into Colon’s deep blue
eyes. Her eyelids fluttered and she
spoke in a throaty, hesitant voice, “This is so sudden.” She shrugged her
alabaster shoulders out of Colon’s embrace and turned away, paused, and then
turned back and stared into those eyes once again, the eyes of Colon, the young
Duke of Falcon’s Nest. Her heart raced
within her bosom. No one had ever spoken
to her in such words before. She had
always thought of herself as a dull, uninteresting woman. Now, suddenly, to be told such things, and by
such a handsome man at that. To become a
Lady, and mix with the social elite of the kingdom. Her head was spinning. What did it signify? Did he truly mean what he had said, or,
perhaps, was he simply trying to seduce her with sweet words? Catherine had heard of such things.
“Why, yes,” Lord Colon continued, “you are
the prettiest lady in all of the heath, and would make me the finest wife, from
the river Eyre to the tall mountains in the north.”
“Why, sir, you flatter me, but to what
purpose?” Catherine was beginning to
enjoy exchanging words with the handsome Captain of the Horse Guards.
“My purpose you ask, my lady? Only to win your heart!” Declared the handsome young man. He swept his hat from his head and bowed low
from the waist. “I must win your heart
to replace the very heart which I have lost to you.”
“Lost your heart? Why what can you mean?” Catheri
Drat: Well, it’s happened
again. The Physics Kahuna is perfectly
aware that the preceding paragraphs are utter nonsense and have no place at all
in a quality work of science education such as the various chapters you have
been studying throughout the year. A
most sincere apology is offered.
We have done a lot of work with energy, but
the type of energy we’ve dealt with has been mechanical energy. It is time now to look into other types of
energy. Thermal energy has to do with
the internal energy of a system – the energy of the particles that make a thing
up.
Thermal
Energy º The total kinetic energy of the particles in a system
The particles that make up a system are the
molecules, atoms, or ions that make it up.
These particles have kinetic energy – they have motion. In a gas, the particles are free to zoom
around and bounce off other particles.
In a liquid they also flit about, but they also make weak bonds with
each other and tend to clump together.
In a solid the particles are bound together with chemical bonds. These bonds are not rigid, however, so the
particles can move back and forth. Kind
of like they’re connected to each other with springs that allow them to
vibrate.
Thermal
Definitions:
Here are some important definitions:
Thermal
Contact º two systems are placed so
that they can exchange thermal Energy
Heat º thermal energy transferred
from one system to another.
Temperature º average kinetic energy of
the particles in a system.
Thermal
equilibrium º A static state. Objects in thermal contact reach the same
average internal energy state and no longer exchange thermal energy.
Temperature: Instruments that measure
temperature are called thermometers.
There are several temperature scales that are in use around the world -
the Celsius scale, Fahrenheit scale, Kelvin scale, and the Rankine scale are
the major ones.
