Tesla

Photosynthesis, the biological conversion from light energy to chemical energy… But I thought photons have zero mass (therefore zero energy?), so where is this energy coming from? Does it just refer to the extremely small energy that comes from a photon’s momentum?Submited by:Lalen

According to many sources, internal energy is the kinetic and potential energies of molecules of a substance – combined. Some sources also say that thermal energy is that definition.

However, I don’t think that thermal energy is kinetic and potential energy combined. I know that heat transfer occurs between a region with higher temperature and a region with lower temperature, but it isn’t necessarily the case with two regions of different internal energies. So that seems to imply to me that temperature is a measurement of thermal energy – so in that sense thermal energy is merely the average kinetic energy of molecules and as such, doesn’t include the potential energy. Is that right?

Thanks (:

By: extremelyfrustrated

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