Why does it feel warmer to walk barefoot over wooden floors than to walk over ceramic tiles even if both are side-by-side in the same room?
In: 3184
You’re not actually feeling how hot or cold a thing is when you touch it. You’re feeling the exchange of thermal energy. Touching something warmer than you will feel hot because your body is absorbing the heat. Touching something colder than you will feel cold because heat is leaving your body. How hot or cold these things are depends on how fast the heat exchange is. More conductive materials (metal) will exchange heat faster than insulating materials (wood)
So the ceramic floor “feels” cold because it is absorbing heat from your foot faster than the wood floor.
#ELI5
Reach into a hot oven, and don’t touch anything. Just hold your hand in there. It’s hot, but you don’t have to yank your hand out, it doesn’t hurt too much. You can leave your hand in that oven for a good 60 seconds. Right??
Now reach into that same hot oven, and touch the baking sheet in there. Ouch! The baking sheet burned your hand! And it burned it right away! Right??
Why?
* The baking sheet transfers heat to your skin FASTER than the air inside the oven does.
* The air inside the oven transfers heat to your skin SLOWER than the baking sheet does.
* But both the air and the baking sheet are the same temperature. So what gives?
**The material matters!**
Metal transfers heat faster than air.
Ooooh, but this works in the opposite way too!
Put your hand into the freezer, but don’t touch anything. Cold, but not “cold cold”. Right?
Now touch an ice cube. It’s a LOT colder, right?
Actually it just ***feels*** a lot colder. Again, the material matters! Here, it’s air versus ice. The difference is that the “heat transfer” is actually going from your skin TO the ice/air, and before we had heat being transferred from the baking sheet TO your skin.
OKAY … back to your question! **Pop quiz time!** And remember, the material matters!
Which transfers heat more quickly to your skin, wood or ceramic?
#ELI5
Reach into a hot oven, and don’t touch anything. Just hold your hand in there. It’s hot, but you don’t have to yank your hand out, it doesn’t hurt too much. You can leave your hand in that oven for a good 60 seconds. Right??
Now reach into that same hot oven, and touch the baking sheet in there. Ouch! The baking sheet burned your hand! And it burned it right away! Right??
Why?
* The baking sheet transfers heat to your skin FASTER than the air inside the oven does.
* The air inside the oven transfers heat to your skin SLOWER than the baking sheet does.
* But both the air and the baking sheet are the same temperature. So what gives?
**The material matters!**
Metal transfers heat faster than air.
Ooooh, but this works in the opposite way too!
Put your hand into the freezer, but don’t touch anything. Cold, but not “cold cold”. Right?
Now touch an ice cube. It’s a LOT colder, right?
Actually it just ***feels*** a lot colder. Again, the material matters! Here, it’s air versus ice. The difference is that the “heat transfer” is actually going from your skin TO the ice/air, and before we had heat being transferred from the baking sheet TO your skin.
OKAY … back to your question! **Pop quiz time!** And remember, the material matters!
Which transfers heat more quickly to your skin, wood or ceramic?
If you touch something, there’s heat exchange.
Stuff that’s heavier (but just a big) contains more subatomic particles. And the more particles, the more thermal energy.
So if you step on something lightweight, like wood, the material directly in contact with your foot warms up more easily because there’s fewer particles to warm up.
And if you step on something heavy, like stone, there’s way more particles to warm up, so the stone stays cold longer, and there’s more thermal energy transferred from your foot to the stone.
#ELI5
Reach into a hot oven, and don’t touch anything. Just hold your hand in there. It’s hot, but you don’t have to yank your hand out, it doesn’t hurt too much. You can leave your hand in that oven for a good 60 seconds. Right??
Now reach into that same hot oven, and touch the baking sheet in there. Ouch! The baking sheet burned your hand! And it burned it right away! Right??
Why?
* The baking sheet transfers heat to your skin FASTER than the air inside the oven does.
* The air inside the oven transfers heat to your skin SLOWER than the baking sheet does.
* But both the air and the baking sheet are the same temperature. So what gives?
**The material matters!**
Metal transfers heat faster than air.
Ooooh, but this works in the opposite way too!
Put your hand into the freezer, but don’t touch anything. Cold, but not “cold cold”. Right?
Now touch an ice cube. It’s a LOT colder, right?
Actually it just ***feels*** a lot colder. Again, the material matters! Here, it’s air versus ice. The difference is that the “heat transfer” is actually going from your skin TO the ice/air, and before we had heat being transferred from the baking sheet TO your skin.
OKAY … back to your question! **Pop quiz time!** And remember, the material matters!
Which transfers heat more quickly to your skin, wood or ceramic?
Materials of higher density transport warmth away quicker. So the tiles cool your feet down much faster than wood, which is actually a good warmth isolator.
Materials of higher density transport warmth away quicker. So the tiles cool your feet down much faster than wood, which is actually a good warmth isolator.
So we cannot actually feel the temperature of something. The only thing we can feel is how cold or hot it makes our skin. This is affected by two things-the actual temperature of the object and its thermal conductivity (how fast it can move heat energy).
Wood is a decent insulator and tile is a better conductor of heat. That is why they feel different
So we cannot actually feel the temperature of something. The only thing we can feel is how cold or hot it makes our skin. This is affected by two things-the actual temperature of the object and its thermal conductivity (how fast it can move heat energy).
Wood is a decent insulator and tile is a better conductor of heat. That is why they feel different
Can you say the word, “Conduction?” Good! *Conduction* is when you touch something like the tile floor, and it’s cold, it means your body is giving your warm away to the floor. Different materials like tile or wood floor *conduct* or take the heat from your body differently because they’re made out of different stuff. Wood feels warmer because it is less dense than tile, so the tile feels colder to your feet. That’s what *Conduction* is, can you say “Conduction,” again? Good!
Latest Answers