when 2 people are close will the warmest person transfer calories to the other through radiating heat?
In: Biology
In short, yes, but very little. Warm body radiates heat energy in the form of infrared light – that’s how thermal scanners and infrared thermometers work. This infrared radiation will heat you up a little if it hits you. In some cases this effect is really obvious – for example, the Sun is a major source of infrared radiation, and if you close your eyes and turn your face to the Sun you will readily feel it warming up. So a warm person standing next to you will transfer some heat energy to you through infrared radiation as well. In this case, however, the amount of energy transferred would be very small, because a person is much smaller and much less warm than the Sun.
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