And why and how does it represent heat unlike other wavelengths of light?
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Infrared is just a longer wavelength of light than the visible we see.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spectrum
As to why we say it’s “heat”, that goes back to anything with a temperature above absolute zero will give of light called black body radiation.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-body_radiation
The stuff around us that’s around room temperature or say your body temperature gives off this light in the infrared spectrum. So we need special cameras to see this light. If you heat something up hotter and hotter the black body radiation will slowly move into the visible range starting at red and moving to white. If you have an electric stove you can kinda of see this as the coils start to glow bright red (although it won’t get hot enough to go past red).
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