Say you bring in a sealed box full of ice into a warm room. Knowing, thermodynamically, that higher temperature means higher energy of air particles that transfer heat by bumping into one another (don’t kill me for this oversimplification!), how does heat transfer across the hard box sides into the inner space and melt the ice?
In: 0
The sides aren’t thermodynamically “hard”; their atoms jiggle like any other atoms. Fast-moving air atoms smash into box atoms on the outside and make them jiggle more, the jiggle is gradually transmitted through the atoms making up the box, finally making the ice atoms jiggle apart and melt.
Latest Answers