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What is 'temperature'

Temperature tells you how hot something is.

You measure temperature with a thermometer in one of the many temperature scales.

Temperature determines which way heat flows.

Heat energy moves from hot objects to cold ones - see heat travel.

The hotter something is the faster the particles that make it up are moving.

It is the average kinetic energy of the particles within a gas that determines its temperature. Not all the particles are travelling at the same speed - some are fast, some are slow but if you add heat energy to a system the particles usually use that energy to make particles move faster (unless they use it to change state! )

CARE - temperature alone does not tell you how much heat energy an object contains - there is more to it than that - see specific heat capacity

Useful links

Temperature scales

Absolute temperature

Reading a lab thermometer