“I’m too cold. Get me a sweater!”
“This soup’s too hot!”
“Phew, I’m sweating.”
“Yowtch, that pan handle burned me!”
If you’ve ever made any of the above comments, then you were talking about thermal energy. Very clever of you, don’t you think? Thermal energy is basically the energy of the molecules moving inside something. The faster the molecules are moving, the more thermal energy that something has. The slower they are moving, the less thermal energy that something has.
I’m sure at some point you’ve said, “Wow, my internal thermal energy is way high! I need a liquid with a low thermal energy.” What…you’ve never said that?! Oh, wait. I bet it sounded like this when you said it, “Wow, I’m hot! I need a cool drink.” Whenever we talk about the temperature of something we are talking about its thermal energy. Let’s get started by watching this video: