 The quality may be regarded as a more abstract entity than any particular temperature scale that measures it, and is called "hotness" by some writers.The quality of hotness refers to the state of material only in a particular locality, and in general, apart from bodies held in a steady state of thermodynamic equilibrium, hotness varies from place to place.It is not necessarily the case that a material in a particular place is in a state that is steady and nearly homogeneous enough to allow it to have a well-defined hotness or temperature.