Caloric Theory: That’s hot
Why does your tea go cold? Caloric theory was supposed to explain how heat gets transferred from hot to cold bodies.
Why does your tea get cold if you leave it standing around for too long? Because the temperature of the tea adjusts to the temperature of the room, but why?
The process of transferring heat puzzled many scientists.
In the late 18th century caloric theory emerged in which the temperature of a body depends on the amount of “caloric” it possesses. Caloric was thought to be a weightless fluid which flows from hotter to colder bodies.
The theory succeeded in explaining phenomena like your tea going cold. Although the theory managed to capture some key properties of heat it had several shortcomings and ultimately didn’t stand the test of time.
Credits
- Created and Produced by: Rita Neves (Research Associate at the University of Sheffield)
- Created and Produced by: Sofie Ried (PhD Student at the University of Sheffield)
- Intro/Outro Music: Andrew Glover
