williams@kirk.DEC (John Williams 223-3402) (05/09/85)
Unidirectional Heat Transfer If you, let's say, used cold as a means of integrated measurement, you would find that cold transfers to hot objects according to all the same laws that govern heat being transferred to cool objects, only reversed. The heat coordinate analysis is simply a convenient tool, and is in actuality just a standard convention for solving thermodynamic problems. Heat is simply a means of expressing the motion of molecules, etc., within a confined region. This motion is conserved, but distributed throughout the medium, statistically, with an exponential decay. Some is lost, however, to the environment. This is not to say that the laws of conservation are invalid, just simply that conservation extends out into the environment, not necessarily the " closed " system you had in mind. Energy is transferred bidirectionally, but, the only difference you are able to measure is the complete result, which statistically transfers more energy to the cold object from the hot object than vice-versa. John Williams < Invention of the Week: Thiodes ( Thermal Diodes ) >