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Internal energy: The energy contained within a body of matter or radiation, excluding the potential energy of the whole system, and excluding the kinetic energy of the system moving as a whole. Heat : Energy in transfer between a system and its surroundings by mechanisms other than thermodynamic work and transfer of matter.
As a form of energy, heat has the unit joule (J) in the International System of Units (SI). In addition, many applied branches of engineering use other, traditional units, such as the British thermal unit (BTU) and the calorie. The standard unit for the rate of heating is the watt (W), defined as one joule per second.
The world's first known building to utilize geothermal energy as its primary heat source was the Hot Lake Hotel in Union County, Oregon, beginning in 1907. [8] A geothermal well was used to heat greenhouses in Boise in 1926, and geysers were used to heat greenhouses in Iceland and Tuscany at about the same time. [9]
Primordial heat is the heat lost by the Earth as it continues to cool from its original formation, and this is in contrast to its still actively-produced radiogenic heat. The Earth core's heat flow—heat leaving the core and flowing into the overlying mantle—is thought to be due to primordial heat, and is estimated at 5–15 TW. [23]
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: =.
A thermal column (or thermal) is a rising mass of buoyant air, a convective current in the atmosphere, that transfers heat energy vertically. [1] Thermals are created by the uneven heating of Earth's surface from solar radiation , and are an example of convection , specifically atmospheric convection .
Thermal radiation is initially defined for a cavity in thermodynamic equilibrium. These physical facts justify a mathematical statement that hotness exists on an ordered one-dimensional manifold. This is a fundamental character of temperature and thermometers for bodies in their own thermodynamic equilibrium. [8] [43] [44] [57] [58]
Heat transfer is a discipline of thermal engineering that concerns the generation, use, conversion, and exchange of thermal energy between physical systems. Heat transfer is classified into various mechanisms, such as thermal conduction, thermal convection, thermal radiation, and transfer of energy by phase changes.