Take the 2-minute tour ×  Pretty much what the title says. My
base question is this. Assuming I take a piece of steel, and a
piece of PVC plastic and I measure both their temperatures and
find they are the same. I then take a look at the vibration
speeds of the individual molecules would they be the same as
well?  Here's a rough example:  I measure both the steel and PVC
and find them both at 100F, and then I measure the vibrations of
a molecule in the steel and find it to be moving at 10 miles an
hour. Would the PVC molecules also be moving at 10 miles an
hour?  I'm sure I'm not using the correct units of measure to
measure the vibration, but I didn't know what the correct unit
of measure is for something like that. Hopefully it gets the
point across.  share|improve this question add comment  1 Answer
up vote 4 down vote accepted  No, because the atoms in steel and
plastic have different masses.  Your example is a bit more
complicated than it need be because steel (well iron) is an
element while plastic is