← ⚛️ Physics · usually met in Std 6-10
Heat is energy moving because of a temperature difference. Temperature is how fast the particles are jiggling. A cup of boiling water is hotter than a bathtub; the bathtub holds far more heat.
Everything is made of particles in constant motion, and temperature measures the average energy of that motion. Heat is what flows from the hotter thing to the colder one, and it travels three ways. Conduction is particle passing energy to neighbouring particle, which is why a metal spoon in tea gets hot along its length. Convection is the whole fluid moving, carrying its heat with it — hot air rising, cool air sinking. Radiation needs no material at all; it is how the Sun's energy crosses empty space to reach us.
The difference between heat and temperature catches people out. A sparkler burns at over a thousand degrees, but the glowing bits are so tiny that they carry almost no heat and barely hurt. A bucket of water at fifty degrees would scald you badly, because there is so much more of it.
Want to see it moving? Search YouTube for “Heat and temperature” ↗ — we send you to the search rather than to one video, because a link to one video eventually rots.
This entry was written for Star Student in our own words — it is a summary, not a source. Here is where the people who actually hold these facts keep them. Go and check.
Your own textbook ↗Balbharati publishes the textbooks free to read online. Your chapter is the thing to check first — an encyclopedia is a summary, and the syllabus is the syllabus.Last gone through: 1 October 2026 · How these entries are written
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