The flow of heat is all-pervasive. It is active to some degree or another in everything. Heat flows constantly from your bloodstream to the air around you. The warmed air buoys off your body to warm the room you are in. If you leave the room, some small buoyancy-driven (or convective) motion of the air will continue because the walls can never be perfectly isothermal. Such processes go on in all plant and animal life and in the air around us. They occur throughout the earth, which is hot at its core and cooled around its surface. The only conceivable domain free from
heat flow would have to be isothermal and totally isolated from any other region. It would be “dead” in the fullest sense of the word — devoid of any process of any kind.
The overall driving force for these heat flow processes is the cooling (or leveling) of the thermal gradients within our universe. The heat flows that result from the cooling of the sun are the primary processes that we experience naturally. The conductive cooling of Earth’s center and the radiative cooling of the other stars are processes of secondary importance in our lives.
The life forms on our planet have necessarily evolved to match the magnitude of these energy flows. But while “natural man” is in balance with these heat flows, “technological man”1 has used his mind, his back, and his will to harness and control energy flows that are far more intense than those we experience naturally. To emphasize this point we suggest that the reader make an experiment.
heat flow would have to be isothermal and totally isolated from any other region. It would be “dead” in the fullest sense of the word — devoid of any process of any kind.
The overall driving force for these heat flow processes is the cooling (or leveling) of the thermal gradients within our universe. The heat flows that result from the cooling of the sun are the primary processes that we experience naturally. The conductive cooling of Earth’s center and the radiative cooling of the other stars are processes of secondary importance in our lives.
The life forms on our planet have necessarily evolved to match the magnitude of these energy flows. But while “natural man” is in balance with these heat flows, “technological man”1 has used his mind, his back, and his will to harness and control energy flows that are far more intense than those we experience naturally. To emphasize this point we suggest that the reader make an experiment.
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