If you are near something hot, say an open flame, you can feel the heat radiating from the fire. I have a juvenile understanding of thermodynamics, but I understand that there is energy radiating from the heat source which is what I’m feeling.
By contrast, if you hover your hand near an ice cold drink, you can FEEL the cold before even touching the glass.
How is this possible since my hand is seemingly radiating more energy than the drink is? Is what I’m feeling just the energy leaving my hand and entering the drink?
In: 9
Two things, really your skin feels drops or increases in your skin temperature, you get that because your skin, which is heated by your body, either loses heat or gains heat.
For gaining heat, it’s easy, something much hotter than you can radiate heat. But that’s really not the full story, you are always radiating heat away, and the environment is always radiating it back. If the walls are 70°F, they are radiating almost as much heat into your skin as your skin radiates away so it feels neutral. With cold things they don’t radiate back, so you feel cold because you radiate your heat away with nothing coming back.
For cold specifically, you also feel the cold air, a glass of cold water chills the air near it which falls down, if you’re close enough you can also feel the cold air near the glass.
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