Category: Physics

Important but surprising or strange facts relating to Physics

Modern Physics is Fundamentally Different from Classical Physics

Superfact 144: Modern Physics including Quantum Physics and Relativity is fundamentally different from Classical Physics. Even if you include Relativity in Classical Physics, which is often done, it is still fundamentally different from “Classic Classical Physics”.

Esther’s writing prompt: October 28th: Classic

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An illustration of the helium atom, depicting the nucleus (pink) and the electron cloud distribution (black). The nucleus (upper right) in helium-4 is in reality spherically symmetric and closely resembles the electron cloud, although for more complicated nuclei this is not always the case.
Electrons (and other particles) don’t have specific positions. They are probability clouds. This is an illustration of the helium atom, depicting the nucleus (pink) and the electron cloud distribution (black). The black bar is one angstrom (10−10 m or 100 pm). The nucleus is 0.01pm. User: Yzmo, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Classical physics and modern physics represent two major phases in our understanding of how the universe works. Classical physics includes fields such as classical mechanics, electromagnetism, optics, and thermodynamics. Modern physics include relativity and quantum mechanics. However, relativity is often said to be classical physics as well as modern physics.

In classical physics time and space are independent of the observers, objects can have exact positions and velocities, and if you measure them precisely you can make exact predictions. Furthermore, energy and matter are continuous. In relativity time and space are relative, and there is no universal now. The order of events depends on the observer and energy and mass are interchangeable. In quantum physics particles do not have a specific positions or velocities, they behave as both particles and waves, and energy is quantized. In quantum physics you have probabilities instead of certainties. The electrons (and other particles) in atoms are described as probability clouds (see picture above). Classical physics and modern physics are very different.

The picture shows three pairs of lamps and three people. The setup is used to show three situations.
Amy is traveling at a high speed to the left compared to two lamps A and B. Alan is standing still compared to the lamps. Adam is traveling at a high speed to the right compared to two lamps A and B. Alan turns on the lamps at the same time. After considering the travel time of the light she sees, Amy concludes that lamp B turned on first. After considering the travel time of the light he sees, Adam concludes that lamp A turned on first. I should add this non-simultaneity can only happen if the lamps are separated by a distance.

A famous but simple formula from quantum mechanics is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle which states that you cannot both know the exact position and momentum (that is mass times velocity) of a particle. Another version of it states that you cannot both know the exact energy and the time interval to measure it. Basically, it is impossible to know a particle’s quantities exactly. They don’t even exist other than as probabilities.

The picture shows the formula for the Heisenberg uncertainty principle
Heisenberg uncertainty principle Shutter Stock Vector ID: 2380436193 by Sasha701

The difference between how things work in classical physics and in modern physics is very large. The language and philosophy of classical physics and modern physics is not even the same. I believe that the fact that there is such a large and distinct difference between the two phases of physics comes as a big surprise to those who were unaware of it. Since this fact is important and potentially surprising, perhaps mind-blowing, it is a super fact in my opinion.

It is easy to think that modern physics is philosophical, mysterious, esoteric, and impractical. It is not. Pretty much all of the electronics you have ever used exist because of modern physics. Modern physics is also essential for lasers, MRI and PET scans, modern medicine, nuclear power, nuclear weapons, GPS, atomic clocks, solar power, small-scale nanotechnology, and a large amount of new materials. That might be a super fact all in itself.

Special Relativity

Relativity comes in two flavors, special relativity and general relativity both pioneered by the physicist Albert Einstein. Special relativity states that the speed of light in vacuum is a universal constant c = 299,792,458 meters per second. The speed of light in vacuum is the same for all observers regardless of their speed and the direction in which they are going. It is always c = 299,792,458 meters per second. If you try to catch up to a light beam and try to travel close to the speed of the light beam, you will not be able to catch up. The speed of the light beam will still be c = 299,792,458 meters per second compared to you no matter how fast you go. In fact, anything without (rest) mass will travel at exactly this speed compared to everything else, whilst nothing else could ever reach or exceed this speed.

A spaceship on the right is shooting out a laser beam towards the left. Alongside the laser beam are four rockets trying to catch up with the light beam.
Four rockets, A, B, C, and D, are traveling along a light (laser) beam. No matter how fast they travel along the light beam, the light beam will always travel c = 299,792,458 meters per second faster than they do. I generated this picture with the help of ChatGPT.

Some consequences of this is that there is no universal now, two events may be simultaneous for some but not for others, two observers moving compared to each other will both observe the other’s time as being slower, and energy and mass are interchangeable, and time acts like a fourth dimension.

The E = mc2 formula
Mass is energy and vice versa, a direct result of the way time and space are related. Stock Photo ID: 2163111377 by Aree_S
The image shows the formulas for the spacetime interval with the constant representing the speed of light in vacuum “(s^{2}=x^{2}+y^{2}+z^{2}+(ict)^{2}”, “s^{2}= (ct)^{2} – (x^{2}+y^{2}+z^{2})” and “(s^{2}=x^{2}+y^{2}+z^{2}-(ct)^{2}”.
If you measure the space coordinates in meters and the time in seconds you must adjust the units to match by inserting the speed of light in vacuum c = 299,792,458. The three forms of the space interval now have the constant c attached to the time coordinate.

General Relativity

In General Relativity gravity is not viewed as a force over distance. Mass / energy is distorting the local space-time creating the effects of gravity. Even though the end result is very similar to Newton’s theory of gravity, the General Theory of Relativity is much more accurate. The General Theory of Relativity also predicts that clocks will be running slower in gravitational fields. It predicts gravity waves, and the strange behavior of black holes, and it is necessary for GPS to work.

The picture shows planet Earth in the middle surrounded by a bent grid with Earth in a gravity well.
Earth is a mass that distorts space-time resulting in what we call gravity.
A black hole with a large bright accretion disk.
3D illustration of giant Black hole in deep space. High quality digital space art in 5K – realistic visualization. Stock Illustration ID: 2476711459 by Vadim Sadovski.

Quantum Physics

As mentioned, in quantum physics, particles do not have specific positions or velocities. See the Heisenberg uncertainty principle above. In quantum physics you have probabilities instead of certainties, and energy is quantized. The electrons (and other particles) in atoms are described as probability clouds. Particles behave as both particles and waves, the so called wave particle duality. Particles exhibit both wave-like and particle-like properties depending on the type of measurement. An example is the famous double slit experiment.

If you shoot electrons, or any particle, through a double slit (panel with two slits) they will show up on the detector panel behind the first panel as if they were a wave. There will be interference patterns (multiple bands), the same as you would get from light waves or water waves. You will even get the interference pattern if you shoot the electrons one by one. However, if you try to detect the individual electrons to see which slit they went through you will get just two bands as if the electrons were bullets going through the slits. In other words, if you look at them, they won’t do the beautiful interference pattern anymore, as if they are saying, “if you look at me, I won’t do it”.

The experimental setup is an electron gun on the left. Electrons are shot towards a panel with two slits. Behind that panel is another panel which displays an interference pattern with multiple bands.
Photons or matter (like electrons) produce an interference pattern with multiple bands when two slits are used. Original: NekoJaNekoJa Vector: Johannes Kalliauer, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

One amazing discovery was that of anti-particles / anti-matter. Anti-matter was predicted in 1928 by the physicist Paul Dirac when he combined quantum mechanics with Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity. A few years later (1932) the anti-particle of the electron, called the positron was discovered. Since then, many anti-particles have been found. I can add that Matter and anti-matter annihilate upon contact releasing enormous amounts of energy.

The pictures show a positron and an electron merging in an explosion with a wavelike photon emerging on the right.
Annihilation of a positron (at the top left) and an electron (bottom left) with the release of energy and gamma quanta Shutterstock asset id: 2200151693 by Sergey Merkulov

Conclusion

Going from classical physics to modern physics represented a huge quantum leap forward (pun intended) both with respect to our understanding of the Universe and the technological revolution this shift (paradigm shift) caused.

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Matter and Antimatter Annihilate Releasing Enormous Energy

Superfact 142: Matter and anti-matter annihilate upon contact releasing enormous amounts of energy. One gram of anti-matter yields 43 kilotons of energy which is nearly three times the yield of the Hiroshima atomic bomb (15 kilotons).  Whenever an interaction creates a matter particle its antimatter counterpart is also created, leading to the mystery of why anything exists at all.

A gigantic explosion resembling a large nuclear bomb near a city. A tiny amount of matter and anti-matter annihilating could cause this.
One gram of matter and anti-matter meeting will cause an explosion three times as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb. Tiny amounts of anti-matter could cause explosions much larger than large nuclear weapons.

Anti-matter was predicted in 1928 by the physicist Paul Dirac when he combined quantum mechanics with Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity. A few years later (1932) the anti-particle of the electron, called the positron was discovered. Since then, many anti-particles have been found. For example, scientists have also created anti-protons and anti-atoms, including anti-hydrogen atoms with an anti-proton in the middle with a positron instead of an electron orbiting the anti-proton. Using the particle accelerator at CERN physicist are now able to create thousands of anti-matter atoms in a matter of hours (pun intended). Anti-matter exists, it is all around us, and it falls down in a gravity field (created by matter), just like matter.

When an electron and a positron meet, or another particle and anti-particle meet, they annihilate in a large burst of energy. The particles will turn into photons (light particles). The energy released is determined by Einstein’s formula for energy and mass equivalency E = mc2. This is why one tiny gram of matter and anti-matter can result in an explosion much larger than the 4.5 ton Hiroshima nuclear bomb. An anti-matter bomb, or anti-matter beam, would be the ultimate weapon of mass destruction.

The E = mc2 formula
Mass is energy and vice versa, a direct result of the way time and space are related. Stock Photo ID: 2163111377 by Aree_S
The pictures show a positron and an electron merging in an explosion with a wavelike photon emerging on the right.
Annihilation of a positron (at the top left) and an electron (bottom left) with the release of energy and gamma quanta Shutterstock asset id: 2200151693 by Sergey Merkulov
The picture depicts a hydrogen atom on the left and an anti-hydrogen atom on the right.
Matter and Antimatter in Modern Physics Shutterstock asset id: 2774510837 by Dream01

The facts that anti-matter exist in the first place, that particles and anti-particles annihilate so extremely violently, as well as other mysteries surrounding anti-matter, such as why there seems to be more matter than anti-matter when they are always created in equal amounts, constitute a super fact (or a few). It is a mind-blowing and important fact.

What is Anti-Matter ?

Anti-matter or anti-particles are often described as particles with the opposite charge of its matter counterpart. For example, an electron and a positron have the same mass, spin, and lifespan (immortal), but their charge is the opposite. A muon and an anti-muon have the same mass (206.77 times the mass of an electron), spin, and lifespan (2.2 microseconds), but their charge is the opposite.

However, it is more than that. Anti-particles are particles for which all external quantum numbers, such as mass, spin, and lifespan, are identical to their matter counterpart, whilst all their internal quantum numbers are reversed including electric charge, the third component of isospin, hypercharge, lepton number, baryon number, upness, downness, charmness, bottomness, and topness. Considering those two last ones are often referred to as beauty and truth, I guess we could call those quantum numbers beautiness and truthiness, but don’t quote me on that.

Perhaps, the most defining characteristics of anti-matter is that a particle will annihilate when it meets an anti-particle. An electron and an anti-muon will not annihilate. Only an electron will do that with a positron, and only a muon will do that with an anti-muon. You can say that an antiparticle is like a mirror image or mirror twin of its corresponding particle. In fact, with respect to the mathematics, an anti-particle can be treated as a normal particle moving backward in time.

Why Does Anything Exist?

As mentioned, matter and anti-matter is always created in equal amounts, which means that an equal amount of matter and anti-matter should have been created in the Big Bang, and subsequently all matter and anti-matter should have annihilated, leading to the question, “Why does anything at all exist?”. Scientists may have started to unravel that mystery.

A man with a blue minus sign above his head and a woman with a red plus sign above her head. They symbolize matter and anti-matter. They are touching each others index fingers as a bright explosion takes place.
Anti-matter and matter annihilating each other. Why does anything exist?

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Neutrinos and the Nobel Prize in Physics

About two weeks ago I published a super fact post titled “100 trillion Ghostly Particles Passes Through Your Body Every Second” The exact super fact is below. Little did I know that the Nobel Prize in Physics would be given to Neutrino research. The announcement happened today and I almost missed it.

Super fact 132 : An estimated 100 trillion ghostly elementary particles, called neutrinos, pass through your body every second, which is 237 sextillion particles in 75 years. Despite that fact the chance that even a single neutrino will interact with an atom in your body during your entire life is about 1 in 4. These extremely abundant particles pass right through you as well as planets without interactions, like ghosts.

The picture shows a transparent glass like human body and thousands of racing particles passing right through the body. | Neutrinos and the Nobel Prize in Physics
100 trillion neutrinos, almost entirely undetectable elementary particles, pass right through your body every second, without touching a single atom in your body, as if you don’t exist. I generated the picture with the help of ChatGPT.

Briefly, the Nobel Prize was awarded to the Wisconsin Professor Francis Halzen for his contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos from deep space. Antarctica serves as an ideal location for neutrino research because its massive clear ice sheet acts as a giant, transparent detector target for the very hard to detect neutrinos (ghost particles). These are some quick facts about the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. This is the press release from the Nobel Committee. This is an announcement featuring popular science. This is the advanced information. This is the New York Times article.

The photo shows a big blue building sitting on tip of white ice.
IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole. Christopher Michel, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons. The photo is from this Wikipedia entry.

Neutrinos with extremely high energies are created in the same environments as other types of particles. However, unlike other particles, neutrinos reach us without changing direction or losing energy. This means they can provide information that is not available in any other way. As an example, an average photon (light particle) is absorbed and re-emitted roughly billions of trillions of times before escaping the Sun. This process takes ten thousands and even hundreds of thousands of years. Once in open space the photon takes just 8 minutes to reach us, but it is certainly not the “original”, if I put it that way. A neutrino on the other is the original.

You can read more about neutrinos here, and here, here, or here. This is an article from the Scientific American about neutrinos and the discovery of neutrinos coming from the Milky Way.

Physics Related Super Facts

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100 trillion Ghostly Particles Passes Through Your Body Every Second

Super fact 132 : An estimated 100 trillion ghostly elementary particles, called neutrinos, pass through your body every second, which is 237 sextillion particles in 75 years. Despite that fact the chance that even a single neutrino will interact with an atom in your body during your entire life is about 1 in 4. These extremely abundant particles pass right through you as well as planets without interactions, like ghosts.

The picture shows a transparent glass like human body and thousands of racing particles passing right through the body. | 100 trillion Ghostly Particles Passes Through Your Body Every Second
100 trillion neutrinos, almost entirely undetectable elementary particles, pass right through your body every second, without touching a single atom in your body, as if you don’t exist. I generated the picture with the help of ChatGPT.

Neutrinos are tiny subatomic particles, often called ‘ghost particles‘ because they barely interact with anything else.  They are capable of passing right through our planet Earth as if it wasn’t there. As mentioned, an estimated 100 trillion neutrinos pass through your body every second.

Neutrinos do not interact with electromagnetic forces and not with the strong nuclear force. The electromagnetic forces are what is governing molecules, atoms, and matter and the strong nuclear force governs the nucleus of atoms. The only forces that neutrinos interact with are the weak nuclear force and gravity, which both are weak forces, and the weak nuclear force has a very short range. In addition, the mass of neutrinos is extremely tiny. That is why neutrinos pass through atoms as if they aren’t there, and it is why trillions of neutrinos can pass through your body without touching you even the slightest and it is also why they are completely harmless. This also makes them extremely hard to detect.

The illustration depicts different kinds of radiation hitting different obstacles including a sheet of paper, a sheet of aluminum foil, a sheet of lead, a container / pool of water, and planet earth. There are different kinds of rays that are stopped by the different obstacles, except the neutrinos go through everything.
Alpha radiation is stopped by paper. Beta radiation (electrons) is stopped by aluminum foil. X-rays and gamma radiation (high energy photons) are stopped by a sheet of lead. Neutrons with certain energies can be stopped by a container of water. Neutrinos cannot even be stopped by a planet. Shutterstock asset id: 2313420693 by Anshuman Rath

An enormous amount of neutrinos flows right through your body as if you don’t exist. They are coming from the sky and from the ground below after passing through earth and none of them will touch any part of you. This is a mind blowing and surprising but not well known fact and therefore a super fact in my opinion.

The Mass of Elementary Particles

More than 200 subatomic particles have been discovered and there are probably many more that have not yet been discovered. Examples of subatomic particles are protons, neutrons and electrons. However, only some of them are elementary particles, or in other words fundamental particles. The electron is a fundamental particle, but the proton and the neutrons are not. Protons and neutrons are called composite particles and consist of quarks, gluons and mesons. The neutrino is an example of a fundamental particle like the electron. Quarks are other examples of fundamental particles.

The illustration is a map of the 17 fundamental particles, but the anti-particles are not included. There are six leptons including the electron and neutrino, six quarks, and five bosons, the photon, gluon, Z Boson, W Boson, and the Higgs Boson. | 100 trillion Ghostly Particles Passes Through Your Body Every Second
There are 17 elementary particles, 34 if you count their anti-particles and 61 if you count all flavors. It is possible to count even more of them if you count left-right-handedness and polarization as separate types of particles. This is the Standard Model of Elementary Particles Shutterstock asset id: 2148276355 by alionaursu

Electrons are lightweight. They weigh 0.511 MeV/c², which is 1,836 times lighter than a proton, which weighs 938.272 MeV/c². The positron, which is the electrons anti-particle weighs exactly the same as the electron. The muon, which is very similar to an electron but is unstable and is 206.77 times heavier than an electron weighs 105.66 MeV/c². The tau is also similar to an electron and is about 3,477 times heavier than an electron and weighs 1,776.86 MeV/c². Quarks are also much heavier than electrons. Photons and gluons are massless.

The neutrino is a lepton and is in some ways similar to an electron, but it has no charge and does not interact with electromagnetic forces at all. The neutron also does not have any charge, but it does interact with electromagnetic forces, which makes it a lot easier to detect. As in the case for the electron there are lighter and heavier versions of neutrinos, the electron-neutrino, the muon-neutrino and the tau-neutrino. Here comes the shocker; the heaviest flavor of neutrino, the tau-neutrino weighs less than 0.12 eV/c² or 0.00000012 MeV/c² making it at least 4 million times lighter than an electron. However, the neutrinos may be a lot lighter than that. We don’t know. They have mass but it is very tiny.

Considering how tiny neutrinos are, and that they don’t interact with the electromagnetic force at all (unlike other neutral particles) and don’t interact with the strong nuclear force at all, it is understandable that neutrinos are like ghost particles, almost impossible to detect. Neutrinos are too light to be so called dark matter, but a hypothetical heavier form of neutrino called the sterile neutrino is a plausible candidate for dark matter.

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Everything is in Motion

Super fact 131 : There is no absolute reference point. All motion is relative. Since everything is in motion compared to something else, that means that everything is in motion. In addition, all material objects consist of particles that are in motion, and all objects with mass move through time.

A photo of planet Earth from space.| Everything is in Motion
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I previously made a post on this topic called “Everything is in Motion – Stream of Consciousness”. For a Stream of Consciousness post you are supposed to write whatever comes to mind without editing, except for typos. Stream of Consciousness is a fun concept. However, it is not fit for a super fact post because a super fact post requires fact checking and linking to reputable sources and it needs to be well organized and well explained, and all that is editing. After writing Everything is in Motion – Stream of Consciousness I realized that “Everything is in Motion” is a super fact. It is an important observation and a fact that is far from obvious. With this post I am rewriting “Everything is in Motion – Stream of Consciousness” into a super-fact I call “Everything is in Motion”.

All Motion is Relative

All motion is relative and everything moves in comparison to something else. You may be sitting in your chair completely still thinking that you are not moving but you are. Earth rotates around its axis at 1,040 miles per hour at the equator, and at 733 miles per hour at latitude 45 degrees. Latitude 45 degrees goes through New York and other northern States, as well as Europe. Sitting at the geographic north Pole won’t help you either because Earth is also wobbling and it is rotating around the sun at roughly 67,000 miles per hour or 107,000 kilometers per hour.

Picture shows a man and his dog sitting in front of a computer. Earth and the sun are in the background.
Man thinking he is sitting still drawn with the help of ChatGPT

The picture below shows Earth’s three main orbital cycles. I used this picture in another context for super-fact #122 “Orbital Cycles are not the Cause of the current Global Warming”. In that context I wanted to point out that Earth’s orbital cycles are too slow (100,000 years, 41,000 years, and 26,000 years) to explain the sudden rapid rise in global temperatures that we are witnessing now. The orbital cycles are also currently slowly cooling Earth, not warming it. However, in this context I am using the picture for a different purpose, and that is to point out that even if you sit at the north pole (or anywhere else on Earth) you will be moving.

Three illustrated orbital cycles. On the left orbital eccentricity, in the middle is the axial tilt and on the right axial precession. | Everything is in Motion
Illustration of Milankovitch cycles from MIT’s Climate Primer.

In addition, the sun is rotating around the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way at 514,000 to 560,000 miles per hour or 792,000 to 828,000 kilometer per hour, and our galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy are approaching each other at the speed of 110 kilometers per second, which is 396,000 kilometers per hour, or 246,000 miles per hour. Whether it is the Andromeda galaxy that is approaching us or our galaxy that is approaching the Andromeda galaxy is just a point of view. We are also moving at millions and billions of miles of hour compared to some other galaxies.

Photo of the Andromeda Galaxy
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

You are also Moving Through Time

As mentioned, motion is not absolute. It is always relative to something else. The universe has no center, no ether to compare with, there is no absolute reference point. It is not possible to declare anything as truly standing still. Understanding this is the first step towards understanding the theories of relativity. According to the theories of relativity the speed of light, or the speed of light in vacuum if you will, is a universal constant c = 299,792,458. The speed of light in vacuum is the same for all observers regardless of their speed and the direction in which they are going. In other words, you are moving at the speed of c = 299,792,458 compared to all light.

A spaceship on the right is shooting out a laser beam towards the left. Alongside the laser beam are four rockets trying to catch up with the light beam.Everything is in Motion
Four rockets, A, B, C, and D, are traveling along a light (laser) beam. No matter how fast they travel along the light beam, the light beam will always travel c = 299,792,458 meters per second faster than they do. I generated this picture with the help of ChatGPT.

In addition, c = 299,792,458 is not a speed in a regular sense, but a conversion factor between space and time. All particles/objects without mass (light particles called photons, gluons and gravity waves) must always travel at this speed, whilst all objects that have mass can only travel slower than c = 299,792,458 (compared to other objects with mass).

The E = mc2 formula
Mass is energy and vice versa, a direct result of the way time and space are related. Stock Photo ID: 2163111377 by Aree_S

You could say that compared to the reference frame of my choosing, which happens to be the chair I am sitting in, I am sitting still. I am not sure that would be fair but according to the theories of relativity you are also moving through time at the speed of c = 299,792,458. Well, that is assuming you have mass. For mass-less particles, like photons, time does not exist. Anyway, the fact that you are always moving kind sneaks in, no matter what you try.

An eye with photons streaming into it. | Everything is in Motion
Billions of photons coming into the eye. For them time does not exist. Shutterstock asset id: 2629068895 by muratart.

You could raise a couple of objections to some of the claims in the last paragraphs. Very far away, beyond the limit of the visible Universe, galaxies can move away from us faster than the speed of light. However, they are not moving faster than the speed of light compared to the space where they are. What is going on is that space and time are stretching fast due to the expansion of the Universe.

Another objection might be that light can move slower than c = 299,792,458 through transparent materials such as glass and water. So, how can the claim that all massless particles must always move at exactly the speed of light in vacuum be true? The answer to that is that the light particles (photons) in those materials are being absorbed and re-emitted as new photons by the atoms. However, in between the atoms the photons move exactly at the speed c = 299,792,458, or more correctly at the time-space conversion factor c = 299,792,458.

From left to right, an atom absorbs a photon, which excites an electron that jumps into a higher orbit. Then it emits a photon and the electron falls back to the ground state again.
From ground state to excited state, absorption and emission of a photon in an atom. Shutterstock asset id: 2180385419 by rktz.

All Matter Consist of Molecules and Atoms that move

But wait, we are not done. Another fact is that everything is made of atoms and molecules that are never completely still. Temperature is a measure of their average kinetic energy (energy of motion). Even at the temperature absolute zero molecules and atoms are still moving. Yes, even at the lowest possible temperature they are still moving. It is impossible for atoms and molecules to stand completely still, just like children.

A vibrating protein molecule.
Thermal vibration of a segment of a protein’s alpha helix. Its amplitude increases with temperature. User:Greg_L on English wikipedia, uploaded to commons by User:Frokor, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons.

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