Heat transfers

Why do hot drinks cool down? Stores of thermal

energy (heat) never stay in one place—the energy
always transfers from hot things to colder things.
These transfers can happen in different ways.

✓ Heat always transfers from hot

objects to colder objects until
they are at the same temperature
(thermal equilibrium).
✓ Thermal energy is transferred
in three ways: by conduction,
convection, and radiation.

Heating water
When water is heated on a gas stove, energy
is transferred in three ways: by conduction,
convection, and radiation.

Radiation
When you put your hand near a hot teapot, you can
feel its heat warm your skin. That’s because your skin
can sense something your eyes can’t see: infrared
radiation. All objects emit infrared radiation, but the
hotter an object is, the more radiation it gives out.

✓ Hotter objects emit more infrared

radiation than cooler objects.
✓ When infrared radiation strikes an
object, it transfers energy to its
thermal energy store.
✓ Matte black surfaces are better
at absorbing and emitting
infrared radiation than shiny
or white surfaces.

Absorbers and reflectors

The amount of energy an object absorbs
from infrared radiation depends on the color
and texture of its surface. Matte (nonshiny)
and black surfaces are good at absorbing and
emitting infrared radiation. White or shiny
objects, however, reflect radiation, so they
absorb relatively little thermal energy.
Conduction
Metal objects often feel cold to the touch because
metals are good at transferring energy away from
your body. The spread of thermal energy through
physical contact is called conduction.

✓ Conduction is the transfer of energy

by touch.
✓ Metals are good thermal conductors
because the particles are arranged in
a lattice and because electrons can
move freely.
✓ Materials that are poor thermal
conductors are called insulators.

Convection
Convection is the transfer of thermal energy by
currents moving in a fluid (a liquid or a gas). When
a region of air or water is heated, it becomes less
dense than the surrounding fluid and rises,
creating a convection current.

✓ Convection is the transfer of heat by

currents moving in a fluid.
✓ Convection occurs because heating
makes parts of a fluid less dense than
the surrounding fluid.
✓ Thermals are rising columns of warm
air produced by convection.