I’ve been thinking about this all night and feel as if I should know this. What is cold, is it the lack of heat or an actual different thing? In other words, are hot and cold real tangible space occupying things and how so?
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I am going to slightly contradict a few of the other comments.
Heat is the energy stored within a material. This is usually in the form of microscopic vibrations and motion. Rub your hands together and the warmth you will feel is some of the motion of your hand being transfered to the molecules your hands are made up of.
Temperature how well a material is holding on to this heat. If two material come into contact, heat will by it self flow from hot to cold.
How hot or cold something actually depend on how much heat is transfered, so it also depend on the thermal conductivity. Much like you will feel alot colder sleeping without a blanket.
This is also why a sunbaked slide can hurt. It actually does not have that much heat energy, as metals are easy to heat up, however it has a higher temperature than skin, so when you tuch it, heat will flow into your hand. The third factor is that is cunducts heat easily, so the heat will flow quickly, burning your hand.
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