• Question: why is heat hot????

    Asked by anon-232575 to Mark, Liam, Laura, Kasia, Gina, Felix on 19 Nov 2019.
    • Photo: Liam Gaffney

      Liam Gaffney answered on 19 Nov 2019:

      Heat is just a way of saying how much the energy that the atoms have got. This is usually them wiggling around and vibrating. If you touch something hot, then the atoms in your hand will also start to wiggle about and gain some of that energy. Your body will pick up on those extra vibrations and then your brain tells you that it is hot!

    • Photo: Laura Sinclair

      Laura Sinclair answered on 19 Nov 2019:

      Liam has answered this well.

      I think it is important to note that heat is not the same as temperature. We can add heat to an object to increases its temperature because were are increasing the objects internal energy to make the object hotter.

    • Photo: Felix Warren

      Felix Warren answered on 19 Nov 2019:

      Heat is a example of particles gaining energy, as a partial gets more and more energy it starts to shake and vibrate breaking free from its bonds changing states and breaking away from other particles. How we actually sense heat is a complicated thing to do with nervous systems in our body, definitely a interesting area but not something I am qualified to talk about.

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