“Jeez, it’s cold outside!”
This time of year that’s a comment that you hear often, especially when the north wind rolls out of Canada and works its way beneath your coat, to your shoulders and the small of your lower back.
But it’s NOT cold outside… not in the least bit.
Mr. Science says that the temperature of an object is the measure of the heat energy that it contains. More energy equals a higher temperature; less energy equals a lower one. When heat is added or subtracted it causes changes in the physical properties of objects like thermometers, asphalt, bread baking in the oven, or the tip of your tongue. “Hot” and even“warm” are real and measurable quantities.
Cold, on the other hand, does not exist. There is no such thing as “cold”. When you touch a piece of ice with your bare hand, the sensation that you feel is not the presence of “cold”, it is the subtraction of heat. The more rapidly you withdraw heat the more “cold” it feels. The ice has such little heat compared to your body that the heat rushes from your hand to balance things out. Your hand continues to lose heat rapidly until the ice is melted, then and only then can your hand warm back up. The sensation that you feel in your hand, through your brain, is that of heat being sucked from your body. Your brain detects this and calls it “cold”but in reality it is simply the profound lack of heat.
Matter is composed of atoms, and atoms are aquiver with energy. There is a broad spectrum of temperatures that range from absolute zero (where all restless movement in the atom ceases) to a gazillion bazillion degrees where even atoms fly apart into their constituent pieces. But nowhere on that temperature scale does “cold” exist, even at absolute zero. Absolute zero isn’t really cold, it is simply zero heat.
So next time the ol’ north wind blows through the crack under your door and causes your candle to flicker, don’t shiver and say “whoa, it’s getting cold”. Instead, say “wow, it’s really getting unwarm quickly”, and grab yourself another sweater to trap the heat.
© Jeff L. Howe, 2011, All Rights
This time of year that’s a comment that you hear often, especially when the north wind rolls out of Canada and works its way beneath your coat, to your shoulders and the small of your lower back.
But it’s NOT cold outside… not in the least bit.
Mr. Science says that the temperature of an object is the measure of the heat energy that it contains. More energy equals a higher temperature; less energy equals a lower one. When heat is added or subtracted it causes changes in the physical properties of objects like thermometers, asphalt, bread baking in the oven, or the tip of your tongue. “Hot” and even“warm” are real and measurable quantities.
Cold, on the other hand, does not exist. There is no such thing as “cold”. When you touch a piece of ice with your bare hand, the sensation that you feel is not the presence of “cold”, it is the subtraction of heat. The more rapidly you withdraw heat the more “cold” it feels. The ice has such little heat compared to your body that the heat rushes from your hand to balance things out. Your hand continues to lose heat rapidly until the ice is melted, then and only then can your hand warm back up. The sensation that you feel in your hand, through your brain, is that of heat being sucked from your body. Your brain detects this and calls it “cold”but in reality it is simply the profound lack of heat.
Matter is composed of atoms, and atoms are aquiver with energy. There is a broad spectrum of temperatures that range from absolute zero (where all restless movement in the atom ceases) to a gazillion bazillion degrees where even atoms fly apart into their constituent pieces. But nowhere on that temperature scale does “cold” exist, even at absolute zero. Absolute zero isn’t really cold, it is simply zero heat.
So next time the ol’ north wind blows through the crack under your door and causes your candle to flicker, don’t shiver and say “whoa, it’s getting cold”. Instead, say “wow, it’s really getting unwarm quickly”, and grab yourself another sweater to trap the heat.
© Jeff L. Howe, 2011, All Rights
