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?
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Different materials have different specific heat capacities. A heat capacity is the amount of energy (Joules) it takes to heat up 1kg, 1 Kelvin (unit of heat). So it takes a lot more energy to heat up tiles than it does wood. So the tiles suck out a lot more energy (heat) from your foot than the wood does before it reaches approximately the same temperature as your foot.
You can’t directly perceive whether a thing you’re touching is cold. What you can feel is whether it makes you cold. Ceramic absorbs heat from warm things touching it faster than wood does, so it makes your feet colder.
Because of how quickly they absorb temperature.
If they are thermally conductive that means they absorb or shed heat energy quickly. This is why you use copper for cooling CPUs. Copper will steal heat quickly.
If your feet are warmer than the metal, it will quickly steal the heat in your feet. It will quickly make you feel colder.
Wood is a crap thermal conductor. Which means it can’t steal your feet heat very fast. So it feels warmer.
We call things that are crap at that… insulators. Insulation. Insulation feels warm… because it doesn’t absorb much of your own heat at all, and your own heat output can be faster than the insulator can get rid of it… so you warm up.
You can’t directly perceive whether a thing you’re touching is cold. What you can feel is whether it makes you cold. Ceramic absorbs heat from warm things touching it faster than wood does, so it makes your feet colder.
You can’t directly perceive whether a thing you’re touching is cold. What you can feel is whether it makes you cold. Ceramic absorbs heat from warm things touching it faster than wood does, so it makes your feet colder.
Because of how quickly they absorb temperature.
If they are thermally conductive that means they absorb or shed heat energy quickly. This is why you use copper for cooling CPUs. Copper will steal heat quickly.
If your feet are warmer than the metal, it will quickly steal the heat in your feet. It will quickly make you feel colder.
Wood is a crap thermal conductor. Which means it can’t steal your feet heat very fast. So it feels warmer.
We call things that are crap at that… insulators. Insulation. Insulation feels warm… because it doesn’t absorb much of your own heat at all, and your own heat output can be faster than the insulator can get rid of it… so you warm up.
Different materials have different specific heat capacities. A heat capacity is the amount of energy (Joules) it takes to heat up 1kg, 1 Kelvin (unit of heat). So it takes a lot more energy to heat up tiles than it does wood. So the tiles suck out a lot more energy (heat) from your foot than the wood does before it reaches approximately the same temperature as your foot.
Just to add a corollary to the explanations of conductivity, the wood would feel *cooler* if the wood and ceramic were out in the sun, and both were heated to a temperature of over 100 degrees F, for the same reason — the ceramic would transfer heat to your feet faster than the wood does.
Just to add a corollary to the explanations of conductivity, the wood would feel *cooler* if the wood and ceramic were out in the sun, and both were heated to a temperature of over 100 degrees F, for the same reason — the ceramic would transfer heat to your feet faster than the wood does.
Because of how quickly they absorb temperature.
If they are thermally conductive that means they absorb or shed heat energy quickly. This is why you use copper for cooling CPUs. Copper will steal heat quickly.
If your feet are warmer than the metal, it will quickly steal the heat in your feet. It will quickly make you feel colder.
Wood is a crap thermal conductor. Which means it can’t steal your feet heat very fast. So it feels warmer.
We call things that are crap at that… insulators. Insulation. Insulation feels warm… because it doesn’t absorb much of your own heat at all, and your own heat output can be faster than the insulator can get rid of it… so you warm up.
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