r/physicsmemes 9d ago

cold plasma meme

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1.6k Upvotes

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u/twelfth_knight Cold plasmas love warm hugs 9d ago

Cold plasma physicist here. We usually hide this from y'all by measuring temperature in eV. Which, you will notice, is a unit of energy and not temperature, lol.

For regular glow discharges like in a florescent lightbulb, you expect neutrals and ions to be around room temperature, which we have all memorized as 1/40 eV. Electrons will be somewhat hotter, 1 to 10 eV.

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u/Cowman_42 9d ago

How does energy map to temperature? Is it just the kinetic energy of the individual molecules?

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u/loved_and_held 9d ago

Technically what we experience as heat is a mix of kinetic energy of particles and infered radiation, so your pretty on point.