Mulepick said:<Would you try and thaw a frozen steak with air or water? (and more)>
The Laws of Thermo deal with heat, not fluids. It's all about delta T (the difference in temp).
Water or air? You cool your beer with all the water you want; I'll cool it with air, -50'F at velocity. Bet I'll freeze it first!
Actually Thermodynamics deal with the TRANSFER of energy from one place/state to another. Hence, the transfer of heat (internal energy) from one system to another system.
I'll bet a flowing liquid @ -50F will cool that same beer in a fraction of the time it takes you to cool it with moving -50F air! Betcha... What I'll give you is the fact that you can produce -50F air WAY easier and cheaper than I can produce -50F liquids...
Every throw a party? Ever notice your beer gets colder at a faster rate if you add water to your ice in the cooler? Just ice alone works well over time, but when you add water it works better and faster. Why? Becuase the cans/bottles only touch the ice with a small amount of surface area. The rest of the surface area is being cooled by the surrounding 32F air. When you add water, you get 32/33F (approx) water and ice eveloping the can/bottle. Hence, providing a 100% surface area coverage AND using water to transfer the heat energy from the water to the bottle... Versus using air and ice to do the heat exchange.....
Wonder why they dont cool nuclear reactors with air? Wonder why they use moving water?
A flowing liquid is best for transfering heat energy from one system to another. The movement allows you to draw heat away from one system to another at a faster rate.
Hence, wind-chill factor.... Moving air is also going to draw heat away from your body faster than idle air.
Moving liquid transfers better than a stagnant liquid. Moving Air exchanges at a faster rate than non-moving air. AND a liquid transfers heat energy more efficiently than a gas. Hence, moving liquids transfer heat energy (entropy) at a faster rate and more efficiently than moving air....
It been a while since I took Thermo and Physics... But I am fairly certain moving liquid works best in most situations. I dont know about extreme situations. I dont know if the calculations hold true or change at a certain point betweed a solid, liquid, or gas when you start to approach large numbers. Maybe absolute zero air will entropy at a faster rate than a flowing liquid at the same temp. But what liquid flows at absolute zero? Also, how do you harness or produce absolute zero without the expense to produce it? What ever you have at absolute zero, be it gas, liquid, or solid how did you get such a thing to absolute zero? To get it there it had to transfer energy from another absolute zero system... And so on...
So I think in terms of systems that are in a normal range of temperatures (here on Earth), and given the ease and expense of such systems (absolute zero benig very expensive), we can say that a moving liquid (for our purposes) works best....
I have NO idea what I just typed... Psycho-babble?
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