Why do atoms vibrate?
Interesting question! All matter in the universe has kinetic energy which makes things move or in some cases vibrate. Think of it as this: When you leave ice cubes out of the freezer for a while they turn into water becuase they have heated up, or gained kinetic energy from its surroundings. Now that it’s a liquid, the water molecules have enough energy so they are able to slip past each other. Then, if you put that water in a pot and heated it up, the water molecules would gain enough kinetic energy to escape the weak bonds that are keeping the water molecules as a liquid, so it’s a gas now, as we know as steam. So as ice, water molecules don’t have much kinetic energy, so they are kept in a fixed formation in relation to each other. Since they still have some kinetic energy, but not enough to make it a liquid, they vibrate. As things get colder and colder, particles vibrate less and less, until they totally stop moving. This is called absolute zero and it’s 0 K on the Kelvin scale, −
