How does heat propagate through vacuum ?
[From: ] [author: ] [Date: 14-06-18] [Hit: ]
and after I interjected a few times, gave me detention. So which one is correct ?Update : Let me elaborate on this. The essence of the teachers statement was that heat is a distinct form of energy by itself and it gets transferred from the sun to the earth as itself. While my argument was that heat is just the effect of absorbing em radiations and cant propagate as itself.......
This is a rather dumb question, but my high school physics teacher said that heat from the sun reaches earth via radiation and it's a distinct form of energy. I presented a rebuttal that the sun actually emits infra red radiation and the earth absorbs the radiation and heats up as an effect. And because IR is an electromagnetic emission, it doesn't need a medium to propagate. The teacher disagreed with me, and after I interjected a few times, gave me detention. So which one is correct ?
Update : Let me elaborate on this. The essence of the teacher's statement was that heat is a distinct form of energy by itself and it gets transferred from the sun to the earth as itself. While my argument was that heat is just the effect of absorbing em radiations and can't propagate as itself. Maybe i was being too picky with the specifics about a broad statement to present the concept, but from the answers, it seems I am correct.
Allow me to take a slightly different tack on this "argument"...
It depends on exactly how you define "heat". Heat is transferred in 3 ways, only 3 ways: convection, conduction, and radiation. The vacuum of space does not contain enough matter to convect or conduct so the only way heat or any form of energy can get from the sun to the earth is via radiation (radiated energy). But... the sun does not emit one simple wavelength of electromagnetic radiation. Actually in emits a very wide range of wavelengths, some of which are very distinct, specifically, the characteristic spectra of the elements of the sun (mostly H with some He). This is how we know the general composition of other stars. But the radiated energy includes radiowaves (which is why astronomers have "radiotelescopes") and IR and UV and gamma rays (which is why astronomers have IR, UV, and gamma ray detectors "looking" at the sun and other stars).
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