This has bothered me ever since I first heard the phrase as a kid.
If air is a good insulator, why do we fill things with insulating material? (Ex: walls with fiberglass, coats with cotton)
I realize these things are very porous, so hold a lot of air. But by them being used at all, must mean air isn’t that great on its own.
Is it just a matter of air is only “good” and other stuff is just even better? Or is it just considered good by being a bad conductor?
In: 3423
Well, they actually do use air as insulation for windows.
The thing is, there are better gases than air, (78% of air is nitrogen), but they use mostly argon as the insulator on windows because argon is much denser than nitrogen which is in the air.
Additionally, argon actually blocks UV rays as well as noise. Argon was discovered by Sir William Ramsey in 1894.
Note: Krypton is even better than Argon in all of the properties I have mentioned, it is more expensive and not as readily available as Argon though.
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