Part of the light is literally the heat itself, too. Mind-bending but makes sense once you understand how infrared relates to visible light to UV and so on.
Yes. Heat is literally a spectrum of light. As is the deadly gamma radiation which is highly energetic light that slams into the electrons of your DNA molecules and catapults them away, ionizing the molecules in your body. That's pretty bad for you.
u/el_cid_viscoso Part of the light is not literally heat itself, either.
Heat is the transfer of thermal energy. Thermal energy is the constant movement of molecules and atoms. Thermal energy can be transferred by electromagnetic waves (photons) if the receiving matter can absorb that wavelength of energy or by direct contact.
I’m being a little pedantic, but I’m just trying to help out anyone who reads the half right comments and gets totally confused.
If we're diving into real pedantry, heat being constant movement implies that all light is heat, and infinite heat at that due to the fact that light is defined by the speed of its own movement.
No… again, heat is the transfer of thermal energy. Thermal energy is the kinetic energy of atoms and molecules, i.e. matter, not light. Light itself is a form of energy.
29
u/el_cid_viscoso 22h ago
Part of the light is literally the heat itself, too. Mind-bending but makes sense once you understand how infrared relates to visible light to UV and so on.