Talk:Heat

RfC about the title or general approach of this article

Should this article be basically on thermodynamics or basically start from ordinary language?Chjoaygame (talk) 04:46, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

Discussions Rfc 02BF554

It's not clear to say there are two subjects that are the same

The problem when we say or imply there are two subjects that are the same is that we don't know what is the other subject beside heat as a thermodynamic concept? There is no second article to merge here. So, it's not clear what is being proposed by this claim? Is it proposed to cover movies in which heat is an important phenomena, the climate change problem, etc. ? Dominic Mayers (talk) 20:48, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Survey Rfc 02BF554

• Comment I used to think that every article on Wikipedia should be almost entirely accessible in ordinary language. Then I found out that the Simple English Wikipedia exists. What a wonderful project! Have the participants in this disagreement/discusson considered heading over to Simple:Heat and working on it as a companion article to this one? It needs more simplification. Darkfrog24 (talk) 18:58, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
• Disagree with the premise I see no difference between the options nor do I see that the choices of approach are even separable. The ordinary language of heat is consistent with the thermodynamic explanation of heat. That is 'heat' has the same meaning in rigorous thermodynamics as in vernacular speech (with a few unusual edge cases and quirks of language). The common understanding of something being hot can only be experienced directly through heat (energy transfer). That is what we mean in the vernacular. Without heat we can not and will not directly experience the thermal energy contained therein. If you touch something that is hot it will burn you by the process of transferring energy i.e. heat. We even understand heat to be distinct from thermal energy in our most intuitive human experiences. On a warm summer day wearing shorts, given the choice between a metal bench and a wooden bench, we know which will be hotter even though they are the same temperature. It is heat that we experience not temperature and not thermal energy. Thus, the article should address the subject of heat (full stop). Addition of more accessible or introductory language, or even vernacular usage, or even quirks of the english language, may be helpful; however, the phenomenon should not be addressed from a factually incorrect perspective. The recently reverted language "Heat is a form of energy..." is simply factually incorrect by both our modern scientific understanding and the conceptual understanding of the human experience in the broader philosophical sense. By the way this exact same debate has been had on this very page before (now archived) and I am conveying basically the consensus opinion of these prior debates. Nick Y. (talk) 21:46, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

  Nick Y.'s comment is sound, logical, and reasonable.

  There remains a slight hitch, the cause of the present RfC. Some readers and Wikipedia editors, especially those who have not studied the history and logic of thermodynamics, will not immediately see the soundness, logic, and reasonableness of his comment. They will be inclined to see 'heat' as Laplace and Lavoisier saw it, or in some other way, not clearly distinguishing between heat and internal energy. The present RfC has examples of that. I think that ordinary language, as distinct from rigorously logical language, does allow some latitude for that. In the historical emergence of thermodynamics, it was a struggle to establish the distinction between internal energy and heat. Even now, the terms 'latent heat' and 'sensible heat', as applied to evaporation, are not too clear, because evaporation might be viewed as a form of matter transfer.

  To deal with this, I think, a past suggestion might be reconsidered: to change the title of the article to Heat (thermodynamics). A long-standing half measure to that end, starting the lead of article with the phrase 'In thermodynamics', has just been undone by Editor VQuaker, I suppose because he sees it as clumsy; yes, it is a bit clumsy. Changing the title to 'Heat (thermodynamics)' would deal with that, and perhaps with Nick Y.'s comment "the article should address the subject of heat (full stop)"?Chjoaygame (talk) 02:25, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  No. VQuakr (talk) 02:43, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

• Yes, according to WP:TECHNICAL. Here's my proposed first sentence (which does nothing to fix the problems I have with it but is a little more concise): Heat is energy in transfer to or from a thermodynamic system, as distinct from thermodynamic work or matter transfer.
  Heat is too generic of a word for this article to start out so technical. I would compare this article in technicality to something like the derivative article, which is not an ordinary topic of conversation in the way that heat is. Heat, as it is one of the most important considerations in day-to-day life, and as such, is going to be searched up by many thousands of different, average people, requires something a bit more approachable, like real-world examples and not only stuff like friction due to isochoric mechanical or electrical or magnetic or gravitational work done by the surroundings on the system of interest. Of course, this article's always going to be technical, but it should start out calmer so us average Joes can claim our info and skedaddle. Cessaune (talk) 05:42, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

  I do not see that your proposed first sentence is substantially more accessible or less technical. It might be a little more clear, mostly due to sentence construction and not starting with a dependent clause. I would encourage concise language that lends a more accessible and intuitive understanding but it must be rigorously accurate. An explanation of the relationship between our modern rigorous understanding and our intuitive experiences may be helpful to both lay and technical students. If in the introduction it should be very concise. However, I see the value of a concise statement such as: "In common language heat refers to the sensation of warmth as generally perceived through the transfer of thermal energy from one body to another." However, from a technical perspective all this is really doing is saying that humans can sense the process described. There already is some of this type of language within the article. Of course there is always opportunity for improvement. Nick Y. (talk) 16:39, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

  Reply to Cessaune:
  Cessaune proposes "Heat is energy in transfer to or from a thermodynamic system, as distinct from thermodynamic work or matter transfer" instead of 'Heat is energy in transfer to or from a thermodynamic system, by mechanisms other than thermodynamic work or transfer of matter (e.g. conduction, radiation, and friction).' The words 'other than' exhaustively cover all other than, and focus on mechanism, while the words 'as distinct from' are vague on those important points.Chjoaygame (talk) 17:26, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  Not to disagree, but - "it should start out calmer so us average Joes can claim our info and skedaddle" - what sort of info do you expect an "average Joe" would avail of that is 1. not scientifically dense, and 2. not immediately obvious to someone familiar with the general concept of heat? I can't think of any. WPscatter ^t/_c 05:08, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

• They are the same thing. All articles should start one "level down" in complexity in the lead and then get into more detail in the body. BTW the first sentence starting with "In thermodynamics" isn't great and should be reworked. VQuakr (talk) 17:01, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
• Wikipedia often struggles with this issue, often with well deserved criticism that our articles often end up incomprehensible aimed at the highest possible technical level. Heat is such a basic every-day concept that at least part of the article needs to be readable by the general public. The article Simple:Heat is short, and does a better job for the non-technical reader. I would suggest we can steal much of that as at least part of the lead section and perhaps a first section of the article. Just be sure to link to the source-revision in the edit summary, for mandatory copyright attribution. In fact I might even just copy-paste the Simple:Heat article above the current lead, save it, and five seconds later paste and save a prepared first draft attempting merging the two into a coherent article. That way other editors can look at that first revision when considering&discussing how to best implement and improve the merging.
  There was a suggestion above about renaming this article Heat (thermodynamics). That is only appropriate if another Heat article is created first, or at the same time. I am neutral on that idea, but it might be interesting if someone thinks they can reasonably distinguish this as two separate topics. Alsee (talk) 05:55, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
• I agree with PaulT2022 that there is no need to imply a contradiction between heat being energy in transfer and heat being internal energy. Yes, most authors if not all authors when they describe a process that involves both the internal energy of the system and this energy in transfer in and out of the system do not refer to the internal energy as "heat", because its clearer to use different terms for these two distinct quantities of energy. But, it's only a convenient terminological convention useful in a technical context. There is no deep concepts in this. For example, Feynman, as do many authors, does not call the variation in internal energy $\Delta U$ "heat" when he describes the law of conservation of energy $\Delta U=\Delta Q+\Delta W$. Yet, he would not make a big deal about this when he introduces heat. He would say that heat is the energy in the jiggling atoms of the systems. Dominic Mayers (talk) 06:31, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
• I generally object to disambiguating "heat(thermodynamics)" from "heat". No, these are not distinct subjects. Yes, the article can be improved.Nick Y. (talk) 20:35, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  @Nick Y.: see my discussion point. Dominic Mayers (talk) 20:53, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

• Start from ordinary language and then explain with thermodynamics. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 13:19, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
• The article should be about use of the term in modern physics; however, lead should describe colloquial use of the term early on, before it gets into technical details, and without unnecessarily implying contradiction (as there's none: heat received by an object and heat stored as internal energy is the same energy). The lead can be improved by removing A thermodynamic system does not contain heat. Nevertheless, so that a link to Thermal energy (or another article describing heat in a dictionary sense of temperature/internal energy) is more prominent, possibly can be added to the disambiguation hatnote as well. The paragraph starting An example of formal vs. informal usage is excessively detailed and can be removed from lead to the History section per MOS:LEADREL. PaulT2022 (talk) 03:37, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

In the record, the wording of 'formal' versus 'informal' was introduced on 8 Oct 2022 by an anonymous IP editor at this edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Heat&diff=next&oldid=1114283454 Chjoaygame (talk) 02:10, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

• I am in favour of extending the name of this article to Heat (thermodynamics) and retaining its scientific & engineering rigour. We don’t say “energy flows”, but heat flows, as does electric current, but heat and electric current are not energy which is why I don’t append the word “energy” as I do with genuine forms of energy such as mechanical energy and internal energy. Similarly, work is not energy even though it is a mechanism for conservation of energy by causing total energy to be reduced in one location and increased in another. We say “heat is generated by combustion and friction” but we also say “energy cannot be generated or created”. If someone wants to start another page about the everyday meaning of heat I won’t object, although be careful because Wikipedia isn’t a dictionary. Dolphin (t) 00:54, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

  Analyzing the differences between the concept of heat (transfer) and internal energy is interesting and I am tempted to discuss it, but that would only create more confusion. The issue here has not much to do with the concepts themselves. No new definition or concept is involved in the current issue. The issue is only what terms should be used to refer to these existing concepts. What you suggest here is that the concept of heat transfer is very different from the concept of internal energy. It's not clear to me how much they are different. Of course, they are different quantities : one is determined by the state of the system whereas the other depends on the transfer process. But, they are both given in unit of energy and one is the source or the target of the other. The point here is that, how much they are different is not that important to explain the issue, because it's a terminological issue that remains essentially the same: what terms do we use to refer to these different concepts. It's very superficial. Only a choice of terminology. Undue weight is definitively given to this terminological consideration. Dominic Mayers (talk) 01:58, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

  It's not that heat as energy in transfer is not natural. It's perfectly natural, but heat as internal energy is also natural. There is no need to make a big deal about this, as if it was fundamental. It's not. It's only a choice of terminology. We can use sentences that suggest that heat is internal energy and never explicitly insist that heat cannot be internal energy, while adopting that strict convention when needed. There is no fight here against this convention, only a fight against making it explicit when it's not needed, thus putting undue weight on it. Dominic Mayers (talk) 09:50, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Revised lead

I just note my change here because there is a really nasty debate above me.

Old first paragraph:

In thermodynamics, heat is defined as the form of energy crossing the boundary of a thermodynamic system by virtue of a temperature difference across the boundary. A thermodynamic system does not contain heat. Nevertheless, the term is also often used to refer to the thermal energy contained in a system as a component of its internal energy and that is reflected in the temperature of the system. For both uses of the term, heat is a form of energy.

New first paragraph:

In thermodynamics, heat is the thermal energy transferred between systems due to a temperature difference. In colloquial use, heat sometimes refers to thermal energy itself.

I am not an expert in thermodynamics, so any comment on my rewrite is appreciated. Pinging User:Bilorv, User:Dominic Mayers, User:Kbrose, and User:Cessaune per above. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 16:09, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

It was not a good idea to create an article only for the notion of heat transfer in thermodynamic. Of course, in that context, the term "heat" refers to transfer of energy. This shocks people because the term "heat" is often used differently, even in scientific contexts. The solution is to be less dogmatic. There is no need to make a big deal about the different allowed usages of the terms nor to emphasis a particular usage of the term. It is sufficient to naturally use the term to refer to energy transfer. People will understand perfectly with all the rigour needed and there will be no confrontation with other natural usages of the term. This requires a complete change of attitude where we worry less about defining a term, but convey the concepts instead. For example, we can say, when we give give a formula that $Q$ is the heat transferred, but the focus is on the concept, on the law, not on a general definition of the term "heat" in thermodynamic. Dominic Mayers (talk) 18:43, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

I think it's a good thing as well. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 01:59, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

So, hopefully someone will find the time to remove all the unnecessary emphasis on definitions and just naturally explain the concept of heat transfer in thermodynamics. It's not easy, because one needs to take a different attitude that focalizes less on definition and more on what are the laws, the concepts, that the readers need to learn. A definition by itself is not interesting, especially if it shocks the readers. Dominic Mayers (talk) 02:59, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

When it comes to these concepts, definitions *are* the crux of correct descriptions in the respective disciplines. For example, even the term heat transfer is not a common term of physicists or in thermodynamics as a pure science, it is mostly a term of thermal engineering. In the scientific context it is just heat, because it already implies transfer. While some notable teaching physicists have used the term heat energy, it also is not commonly accepted language, because experts know that heat is always energy and nothing else. Perhaps some have used it in context of contrasting with other types of energy. Even the novice and casual use of heat is rarely accompanied with energy. So the idea that the laws of thermodynamics can be explained with casual language in a precise manner, is an illusion, and the notion that people will understand perfectly is nothing by subjective POV blubber, and not borne of the experience of teaching thermodynamics. When we cite Q as heat, it needs to be very clear what that means. kbrose (talk) 18:16, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Just above is an example of someone who claims to be an expert in writing encyclopedic articles only because he teaches the subject and says that what others say is only subjective POV blubber, and not born of the experience of teaching. He forgets that the audience here are not his students. I maintain my common sense point. There is nothing non rigorous in explaining the meaning of a quantity $Q$, called heat, in the context of the laws that are introduced. Also, I am not saying that it's a bad idea to always use the term heat in a way that is consistent with the use of the term in these laws. But, we can do all these things, without making a big deal about terminology in the lead. We can mention at some point in the article that we use the term heat only with a given meaning, if we think it can help. It's not clear to me that it will help that much, but that is not what I discuss here. I say that it's weird to make a big deal about this in the lead. It makes the subject seem superficial. Dominic Mayers (talk) 02:55, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

I would recommend changing "heat is the thermal energy transferred between systems..." to "heat is the transfer of thermal energy between systems...".

This would emphasize that heat is a process (the transfer of energy) rather than implying that heat is a type of energy that resides within a system. Curiousdashpot (talk) 15:49, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Heat as entropy

There is a paragraph in the article that states: "Today's narrow definition of heat in physics contrasts with its use in common language, in some engineering disciplines, and in the historical scientific development of thermodynamics in the caloric theory. The terminology of heat in these instances may be replaced accurately with entropy." This is backed up by a citation to a textbook by Hans U. Fuchs. However, this textbook is associated with the Karlsruhe Physics Course (de:Karlsruher Physikkurs), a somewhat controversial pedagogical program that renames some thermodynamical terms, and emphasizes the flow of entropy. I think this claim that common notion of heat can often be replaced by entropy should be backed up by mainstream sources. In case that is not possible, it should be removed. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 06:27, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

It may perhaps be possible to find 'mainstream sources' that seem to back up the claim that "The terminology of heat in these instances may be replaced accurately with entropy." In thermodynamics, almost anything can be found in 'mainstream sources', there are so many of them with such variety. I think that merely finding a 'mainstream source' for it, or several, is not sufficient reason to put it unqualified in the article as a reliably sourced proposition. On such a venerable topic as heat in thermodynamics, Wikipedia editors need to use experience and judgement in picking the mainstream, based on a wide reading of reliable sources. I think it unwise to try to represent every shade of opinion. I favour going for the best mainstream thinking.

Some writers distinguish the French terms chaleur and calorique. For example, Stephen Brush, discussing Carnot, writes in a footnote:

Since Carnot did later abandon the caloric theory, it has sometimes been suggested that Carnot's discussion in the Reflexions should be considered as a "correct" modern thermodynamic analysis, by reinterpreting his term "calorique" as "entropy." I think T. S. Kuhn has effectively disposed of this suggestion by showing that whatever pedagogical value it may now have, this reinterpretation has no basis whatsoever in Carnot's own exposition of his theory, and can only confuse our historical understanding of the subject. Am. J. Phys. 23, 91, 387 (1955).

That relates closely to the claim presently under discussion.

I think that Editor Jähmefyysikko is right to remark that Fuchs' textbook is associated with a controversial pedagogical program. I think that if Wikipedia wishes to cite such a program, it should be done with clear indications of its controversiality, as distinct from mainstream orthodoxy.

Orthodox thermodynamics, perhaps mainly following Gibbs, uses two cardinal characteristic representations, the 'energy representation' $U=U(S,V,\{N_{j}\})$ and the 'entropy representation' $S=S(U,V,\{N_{j}\}).$ I think that putting the viewpoint of Fuchs as if it were mainstream tends to confuse. Usually, in contrast to the Fuchs viewpoint, that of Clausius is followed, in which an infinitesimal quantity of heat transferred is often enough shown in some way such as ${\text{đ}}q=T\ {\text{d}}S.$ This distinguishes 'heat' from 'entropy'.Chjoaygame (talk) 08:55, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

The comment in question does not belong in the History section.Chjoaygame (talk) 01:29, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Removed it. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 04:13, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Physics

heat and it's effect 103.201.126.49 (talk) 15:16, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Physics

Heat and ots effect 103.201.126.49 (talk) 15:17, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Heat and ots effect 103.201.126.49 (talk) 15:17, 19 November 2023 (UTC)