Video narration
When you dip a spoon into hot tea, are heat and temperature just two names for the same thing? At first, the tea feels warmer than the spoon. A thermometer reading tells you the tea's temperature: how hot it is. It measures temperature, not heat. Temperature describes the tea's hotness; heat is energy transferred from the warmer tea to the cooler spoon. The reading describes the tea; it doesn't pass to the spoon. Energy does. As the spoon warms, the difference between their temperatures gets smaller. After a little while, the spoon feels warmer than it did before, because energy has moved into it from the tea. That transfer continues as long as the tea is warmer. So, what are they? Temperature is the tea's measure of hotness; heat is energy passing into the cooler spoon.