Eli5: What really happens when you change the temperature in an AC (Cooling) ?
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Hot things want to be cold things, so the hot things give their energy to the cold things so they can both be the same. In an air conditioner the hot thing is the air, the cold thing is a refrigerant inside the big metal box outside, and the giving of energy is called the Rankine cycle. In a perfect setting if you were to leave an air consider permanently on, the air you’re cooling would eventually get to the temperature of the refrigerant. That is normally too cold for people so using a thermometer, your thermostat, the unit shuts off at certain measurement. When you change the temperature on the thermostat, you just change where that shut off point is.
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