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Physical Science, 5/e
Bill Tillery, Arizona State University

Heat and Temperature

Chapter 5 Overview


Heat has been closely associated with the comfort and support of people throughout history. You can imagine the appreciation when your earliest ancestors first discovered fire and learned to keep themselves warm and cook their food. You can also imagine the wonder and excitement about 3000 b.c., when people put certain earthlike substances on the hot, glowing coals of a fire and later found metallic copper, lead, or iron. The use of these metals for simple tools followed soon afterwards. Today, metals are used to produce complicated engines that use heat for transportation and that do the work of moving soil and rock, construction, and agriculture. Devices made of heat-extracted metals are also used to control the temperature of structures, heating or cooling the air as necessary. Thus, the production and control of heat gradually built the basis of civilization today (Figure 5.1).

The sources of heat are the energy forms that you learned about in chapter 4. The fossil fuels are chemical sources of heat. Heat is released when oxygen is combined with these fuels. Heat also results when mechanical energy does work against friction, such as in the brakes of a car coming to a stop. Heat also appears when radiant energy is absorbed. This is apparent when solar energy heats water in a solar collector or when sunlight melts snow. The transformation of electrical energy to heat is apparent in toasters, heaters, and ranges. Nuclear energy provides the heat to make steam in a nuclear power plant. Thus, all energy forms can be converted to heat.

The relationship between energy forms and heat appears to give an order to nature, revealing patterns that you will want to understand. All that you need is some kind of explanation for the relationships--a model or theory that helps make sense of it all. This chapter is concerned with heat and temperature and their relationship to energy. It begins with a simple theory about the structure of matter, and then uses the theory to explain the concepts of heat, energy, and temperature changes.