Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The statement of Newton's law used in the heat transfer literature puts into mathematics the idea that the rate of heat loss of a body is proportional to the difference in temperatures between the body and its surroundings. For a temperature-independent heat transfer coefficient, the statement is:
Thermoregulation is the ability of an organism to keep its body temperature within certain boundaries, even when the surrounding temperature is very different. A thermoconforming organism, by contrast, simply adopts the surrounding temperature as its own body temperature, thus avoiding the need for internal thermoregulation.
Thermal conduction is the diffusion of thermal energy (heat) within one material or between materials in contact. The higher temperature object has molecules with more kinetic energy; collisions between molecules distributes this kinetic energy until an object has the same kinetic energy throughout.
Students encounter a source of possible confusion between the terminology of physics and biology. Whereas the thermodynamic terms " exothermic " and " endothermic " respectively refer to processes that give out heat energy and processes that absorb heat energy, in biology the sense is effectively reversed.
Biological thermodynamics (Thermodynamics of biological systems) is a science that explains the nature and general laws of thermodynamic processes occurring in living organisms as nonequilibrium thermodynamic systems that convert the energy of the Sun and food into other types of energy.
The flow of heat is a form of energy transfer. Heat transfer is the natural process of moving energy to or from a system, other than by work or the transfer of matter. In a diathermal system, the internal energy can only be changed by the transfer of energy as heat: =.
This increases heat production as respiration is an exothermic reaction in muscle cells. Shivering is more effective than exercise at producing heat because the animal (includes humans) remains still. This means that less heat is lost to the environment through convection. There are two types of shivering: low-intensity and high-intensity.
The molar heat capacity is the heat capacity per unit amount (SI unit: mole) of a pure substance, and the specific heat capacity, often called simply specific heat, is the heat capacity per unit mass of a material. Heat capacity is a physical property of a substance, which means that it depends on the state and properties of the substance under ...