A science question

Correct me if I am wrong, but heat cannot be lost into space, except through radioactivity, electromagnetic phenomena (light), or physically projecting material into space (to be lost from that body).Vacuum is an insulator and space is a vacuum.It seems to me much of the "cooling" is about transferring heat from the inner compacted areas (as well as radioactive areas) to outer regions including the hydrosphere and atmosphere.Since we are not creating much light, it would generally be losing atmosphere that would count as the only real "loss" of heat, otherwise it is just a distribution of heat to all parts of the planet.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

Yes, electromagnetic radiation (light). The other poster mentioned that there is radiation beyond the visible (what we call light), though I meant to say all of that with the example of a range of radiation being light.Where I could be wrong, is how much em radiation we put out in total. I did not think we put out much ir, at least nothing compared to the input of ir and uv that we get from the sun. Indeed I thought most of what the earth would produce at the surface would be absorbed by the atmosphere (as it does the same thing for em radiation from the sun).

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

I was trying to refer to all em radiation, so light would include that outside just the portion we see.However I was not aware that we did lose much ir to space. We have quite a bit of em radiation (from ir to uv) blasting us from the sun, a portion of which is caught by the atmosphere and (if I am not mistaken) the magnetic belt.For the earth to "cool" into space, would it not require the surface rock to emit ir into the atmosphere where it would be trapped in the same way as the sun's energy gets aborbed? I realize some would escape anyway, and a portion of the atmosphere would also "radiate" out into space, but wouldn't it pretty much be a net gain going on? And even without the sun, not a lot of loss?Do you have figures for this? I am interested.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

Thanks, that seems pretty much along the lines of what I was expecting (and trying to describe). I didn't see anything indicating the exact average of inputs/outputs. Maybe I read to quick? It seemed to suggest relative balance. I'm just as nature made me... plus some creepy effects. I was going for a slightly sinister look (it was for a game character). Have I gone too far?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

Heheheh... okay now. My avatar is a piece of a bigger image. Someone else mentioned the disco angle and I hadn't thought of that because I know the full image.I realize now that given a modern frame of reference with the parted shirt and necklace, there is a suggestion of some 70's disco outfit and a Shawn Cassidy haircut.In the grand scheme of things it started with a photo of me in costume (it really isn't a disco shirt, but a medieval one) and I altered bits of my head to look more sinister or mysterious. The city scape and "spell" around the character (in the larger image) places it outside a dance floor and works as a rogueish wizard. It is however my first experimental image for that game and is not one I use anymore. I decided to dust it off and use it as an avatar, but now I am wondering if I did the wrong thing.I ended up in a fight with my gf last night because of all this. We can't agree if it is better described as an image of me, with a few differences or an image of someone else, with a few similarities. In the end we both agreed I will not reveal what is me and what is not so you'll just have to keep guessing about the hair.Heheheheheheheheheh...

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

It seems to me a guy using pac man (or a smiley face) as an avatar should not throw stones at an avatar reminiscent of camp 70's iconography.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

One should remember that not only did I mention that (in passing) within my post (unfortunately rather poorly), but in response to the replies I got which made this clearer I noted that there would be a question of the amount of loss IR would provide.That is it seemed to me we would have a net gain, rather than a net loss in our energy budget, which means the earth can't "cool" through this method even if it is a potential source for cooling in general.Though there was a citation mentioned it appeared more or less to back up my feeling. In any case it certainly did not show that we would have a net loss over time. I'd be interested in knowing if anyone has a good energy budget for the earth and its atmosphere.As a side note, on reading your description of ER it struck me as an interesting possibility if our increased use of radio transmissions would be adding anything to "global warming". Obviously not in the sense that CFCs can trap heat better, but that it actually adds energy to the atmosphere. Maybe not, but it was something that just ran through my mind while thinking of bridges absorbing the "heat" of FM radio transmissions.This message has been edited by holmes, 03-06-2005 11:16 AM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

Sorry that my being in a different time zone kept me out of the loop on this one. Sylas, Percy, and Ned have all done a pretty good job explaining this, yet you seem to be having an a priori hangup regarding what heat is, and so it leads to confusion.Let me have a stab at this...I think you are confusing heat with energy. From merriam webster, energy is: One kind of energy is based on physical motion (momentum energy) of particles and so transmitted directly from one system to another based on conduction (or convection I suppose though that seems only like a forced/extended conductive situation). This is kinetic energy.Another kind of energy is electromagnetic. It has the ability to induce changes in systems over a distance without direct physical contact between particles.In a system containing energy (general) a particle may give it off via kinetics or electromagnetism. That is it can start moving around more as a whole, or its electrons can start moving about more giving off electromagnetic radiation (there are a bit more but this is simplified).Heat is an arbitrary concept (kind of like weight) used to measure the amount of kinetic energy contained in a system. Thus heat can be thought of as a form of energy.However, it is true that as energy increases in a system one will have increases in both kinetic and electromagnetic manifestations of that energy. Thus heat can be determined indirectly from EM radiation (they vary proportionally). That is after all why IR goggles will help pick out a hot body from colder surroundings.Thus you cannot say heat is light, but rather that light is energy and to some proportional degree an indicator of kinetic energy and so heat in a system.Light is not a loss of heat, but of energy, though certainly a loss of energy means that the system will lose kinetic energy as well.My original post is still okay, though obviously not well stated. Loss of energy will be through kinetics and EM. Since there is a vacuum and a vacuum is an insulator, kinetic energy (and so "heat") will not be lost, except as molecules actually leave the atmosphere altogether (as did happen deep in earth's past). There is no sense of earth's environment actually "cooling" (transferring heat through kinetic mechanisms) into space.It is true that as energy is drained via EM, kinetic energy which is not escaping can be transferred to EM and so lost that way.I hope this seems clearer.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

I'm not sure I agree. I mean I do agree that it is better to say heat is very closely related to kinetic energy, rather than is kinetic energy, but I have a hard time with his assessment that heat is light and kinetic energy produces light.Let's take a hydrogen system with no electrons. If energy is transferred to it, will it radiate EM energy? How? Maybe I am missing something, but it seems that in that case it will only be able to express itself via kinetic energy and "heat transfers" and not in the form of light, except if one reaches an energy level where hydrogen fuses or other particles can form via hydrogen collisions.I look forward to being corrected and so enlightened.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

I do not know if this is true at all. Just because the interior of the earth is hotter, is no indication that the exterior is losing heat. It may be that the energy being generated internally is greater than that being absorbed by the external surface.Think of a pot of baked beans. One can keep the fire going beneath and have a heat lamp going on the top to match any potential cooling to the outside atmosphere (or perhaps simply put on a lid). Eventually a thick dense layer (skin) may form at the top. The skin will feel warm (perhaps hot) but much cooler than the churning mass below, which from time to time will explode through the surface violently.It is true that a lot of energy has been put into our earth's system, but over time we have lost layers of atmosphere and energy has become stored in new ways (life).I am uncertain if we can definitively say we are losing more heat than gaining, from the sun.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

You are wrong. See my post #65 and hopefully it will seem clearer.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

All light is not heat and certainly not all heat is light. I did some more perusing and found that most of what I said is dead on. I may have to revise my own conception of heat to include more EM effects, but that is more of a semantic shift than a purely conceptual one. Here is a good link on this subject, specifically regarding concepts of temperature which is generally what people think of as a measure of "heat".But even better, and more concise, is Wikipedia's entry on Heat. It backs up almost everything I have been saying. Here we go...what it is... how it is transferred (note convection is form of conduction)... Conduction related to kinetic energy... EM radiation (note I am wrong in that it appears anything other than a bare neutron is capable of EM output, though my guess is that this is less relevant than the activity of electrons in producing EM "light")... Regarding EM as heat... Unlike kinetic energy which does transfer heat when two systems are put into contact, EM radiation is not the same. For radiation to be a source of heat it must be absorbed (which is reliant on the target body). EM radiation may go unabsorbed and can even be reflected, thus no heat involved.However for the purposes of this discussion it would seem IR radiation is a form of heating, though to my view (biased from a chemical-kinetic education) it is more accurately described as energy loss than heat loss.Hopefully this helps everyone out. It definitely corrects some of my semantics regarding what is heat, but the underlying point I was making remains the same. We need to be looking at an energy budget, and the only real loss we can have is radiative, since conductive loss is not possible due to the surrounding vacuum.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

I think Sylas is backed up by the info at wiki, but I am in agreement with you that it becomes open to misinterpretation, and so the kinetic definition (which you call the layman's definition) is more convenient to use.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

I was referring to the wikipedia link I gave for heat. It also backed you up to some degree. I notice no one has mentioned my citation of the information from wikipedia. Is it a no no for references? I thought it was pretty clear in its run through on heat. This would have been my initial reaction as well, it certainly was how I learned about it in P Chem, though Percy has raised an interesting point regarding a single atom having heat in the form of motion. I think this would make even more sense if we are talking about a large molecule, where vibrational and oscillatory states will have energy ready to impact and affect other molecules it might come in contact with.I guess someone with a statistical thermodynamics background will be able to argue this point better.In my case, I think I will back up Percy saying kinetic models are better used for understanding what heat is, and then you and Crash (against Percy) in that it should be in masses and not single atoms... all of this for easire understanding of what heat is, even if technically one can introduce single entity systems and heat flow (and so EM) models.But of course I will keep an open mind on this. Seems like we are at the "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" stage.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

When I think of "internal energy" as a generalized concept I visualize it like the warp core reactor (antimatter engine) of a Star Trek era spaceship. They talk about increasing amounts of energy in the warp core and there is an increased sound effect and the ship sort of shakes and shimmies more and more. This would be analogous to the variety of different phenomena actually being experienced by an entity.Then transfer of energy would take various routes just as the warp reactor could output the energy in a manner of different means, including physical (the creation or movement of matter) or pure energy.Not sure if this helps but that's how I think of "black box" general models of "internal energy".By the way, I like all the other descriptions you had for visualizing kinetic energy. It brought back my P Chem and molecular modelling days. In my thermodynamics coursework your understanding was pretty well dead on. Although we understood heat as a property that flowed from one to another, it was from a kinetic standpoint, and there could be heat within an isolated system (thus energy did not have to be getting exchanged to be called heat). Granted mine was chemistry and physicists may have a totally different view of thermodynamics.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)