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Comment on Air: Where did that bring you? Back to me.
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 9 months agoHow does heat get from the water radiator to the air?
Radiation.
Atoms don’t physically touch. The electrostatic force that both binds atoms into molecules and keeps molecules separated is mediated by photon exchange.
0Xero0@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 9 months ago
The fan blows air on the radiator. Those air molecules can’t physically touch the radiator. The electostatic forces of atoms keep everything separated. When you touch something, you are feeling the electrostatic force of your finger’s atoms pushing against the electrostatic force of the object’s atoms.
The electrostatic force (that is the electro magnetic force that electrons radiate) is actually photons. The particle of electromagnetism is the photon. When you touch something you are feeling the photons exchanging between the electrons in the atoms of your fingers and the object.
The definition of radiation is photon emission/absorption.
Iron_Lynx@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Counterpoint: at the boundary layers, right where the air touches the fins, the main mechanism for heat exchange is conduction. Ultimately, convection is just conduction, where the medium undergoing heat conduction is a moving fluid, which massively amplifies the rate of heat exchange.
Air is kinda shit at taking in heat through radiation, but fine at doing so via conduction and convection.
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 9 months ago
The metal atoms in the fins don’t move into the air. They stay on the fins. The fins’ atoms have to transfer their kinetic energy via photon exchange to the atoms in the air.
So conduction is radiation at atomic distances.
Iron_Lynx@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Ah, I see we’re getting to the point where it’s hard to tell if we’re being philosophical or pedantic.