Since things heat up when they move faster (i.e. particles and the definition of temperature), why does air feel nice and cool in a breeze, or from a fan? Why isn’t the air warmer than normal when it’s moving faster?

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Since things heat up when they move faster (i.e. particles and the definition of temperature), why does air feel nice and cool in a breeze, or from a fan? Why isn’t the air warmer than normal when it’s moving faster?

In: Physics

7 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

* What you sense as “temperature” is actually heat flowing into or out of your body.
* Heat always flow from high concentration to low concentration.
* If there is no air flowing over your body, your internal heat will slowly make its way out of your skin into the air around it, heating that air up.
* Air can only hold so much heat so eventually that flow of heat will slow down.
* But if you move that heated air away and replace it with less heated air, the heat flow will pick up again.
* So a fan works by constantly replacing the slightly heated air around your body with air that isn’t as hot.
* It feels cooler than it is because your body is moving its heat away faster.

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