I feel stupid to ask but here goes.
So you can sit in a sauna where the thermometer measures the air at 80oc, and it’s fairly comfortable. But if you sit in water which a thermometer measures at 80oc, you die pretty instantly.
So I get that water is denser and so transmits heat faster – but then… what is the thermometer measuring if not heat transfer???
Tia
In: Physics
Temperature is not the same as heat transfer.
Temperature is the average energy of the molecules. Heat transfer is the exchange of energy that causes changes in temperature.
Water is a very good conductor of heat, where as steam is not that good of a conductor. Try picking up a can of soda from the fridge and something in cardboard. They will feel drastically different because they transfer heat differently, but they have all been sitting in the fridge for hours reaching an equilibrium temperature of the fridge temperature.
A thermometer measures temperature, basically you take a good conductor(steel usually) and put it in a fluid you wish to measure, because it is a good conductor it will quickly exchange heat until they reach an equilibrium temperature. That temperature changes the electronics inside the thermometer(the resistance will change), and that can be translated into a temperature.
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