Comment on Fight me

• azertyfun@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  If we’re going to be pedantic, let’s do it correctly.

  Even with the blinds shut, a space heater will emit a surprisingly large amount of radio waves (mine actually disrupts USB devices with a small EMP when it turns on, and anyone with an RTL-SDR can tell you those 50 Hz harmonics are rough). Some of those radio waves will penetrate the walls/blinds and a tiny fraction might escape the atmosphere and head off into space. From there some will find their way to interstellar space and potentially drift “forever” (well, until the heat death of the universe or whichever theory you subscribe to; I think at that point saying “the photon never got converted into heat energy” is a good enough approximation).

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  • HugeNerd@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    tell you those 50 Hz harmonics are rough)

    Yes, nothing like a sine wave in a resistor to create those harmonics.

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• usrtrv@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  So then you state: The light will become heat energy.

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• Thorry@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Sure, but like the other commenter said, everything turns into heat eventually

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  • BakerBagel@midwest.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    So the heater takes all energy you put into it and turns it into heat at a 100% efficiency

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• smoker@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  The heat isn’t transmitted via photons, it’s transmitted via convection. The air acts as a medium to transmit the heat energy outward. The heating element itself emits photons because it gets hot enough where the atoms within vibrate at a frequency which reaches the visible spectrum of light. That’s why cooler elements glow red (lower frequency) and hotter elements glow blue (higher frequency). Most of the heat energy is not contained in the photons, you need an output on the level of the sun to achieve that. With regards to the sun, all of the energy is carried by radiation anyway, because convective currents can’t travel in the vacuum of space.

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  • Cethin@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    They didn’t say most of the heat was carried by photons. They said the photons turn into heat when they’re absorbed by atoms. That’s how radiative heat works, and yeah, most of the heat from a space heater isn’t radiative, but some is. All of the light you see turns into heat, so it isn’t lost. A tiny fraction will be lost through some means, but approximately 100% is turned into heat at some point.

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