eli5: Why do cold things get hot, and warn things get cold?
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The universe strives for a state of entropy (I say strives, but it doesn’t have a goal, really – it just moves in that direction naturally). This means an even distribution of all matter and energy across the universe. Some fundamental forces combat this, but the trend toward entropy is relentless.
Heat is a concentration of energy in a specific object and entropy wants to stop that – it wants that energy evenly spread out across everything. So the hot thing will have it energy radiate out and warm its surroundings until they are all the same temperature (and even spread of the heat energy). Conversely, a cold thing will have energy radiated into it, cooling its surroundings until they are all the same temperature.
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