2006-08-26 18:52:14 · 12 answers · asked by Crystalline As Dew 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
It isnt!
But it *feels* cooler because it causes the moisture/sweat on your skin to evaporate. This happens because "fresh" air is constantly flowing over your skin; air that absorbs the moisture from your skin is constantly being replaced with less humid air.
In order for the moisture on your skin to evaporate (that is, go from a liquid to a gas), it needs to gain energy; that energy comes from the heat from your body.
So, although moving air isn't actually cooler, it does cause you to cool down.
(And so, as you may infer, as the air gets more and more humid, a fan becomes less and less effective at cooling you down. That's why humidity makes their air feel warmer, even when it isn't - it affects the amount of sweat that can evaporate from your skin)
2006-08-26 19:05:51 · answer #1 · answered by extton 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Moving Cooler
2016-11-06 23:09:20 · answer #2 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A common misconception - you are not alone!
Moving air only feels cooler because it draws heat away from
your body by pushing away the little "bubble" of air around you that your body has heated. The same effect comes from sweat
on your skin evaporating - one of the laws of physics; matter always drops in temperature when it transforms into a gas (from a liquid OR solid)
That's also why computers have little fans in them- to blow "cooler"
air over the cooling fins on the CPU- again; it pushes the heated air away from the fins and replaces it with fresh air. Simple!
2006-08-26 19:12:33 · answer #3 · answered by Ammy 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It isn't it's actually hotter. Heat is the total amount of kinetic energy in a sample of matter. If the air is moving it has more kinetic energy than a still sample. If it feels cooler, it is because it is taking heat away from you through convection. Just like the water in the the cooling system of your car does.
2006-08-31 06:59:56 · answer #4 · answered by bulldog5667 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
This is caused by boundary layer thinning. Effectively, heat transfer from your skin is more rapid with moving air as there is a steep temprature gradient between the surface of your skin and the next adjacent layer of air.
2006-08-26 21:32:22 · answer #5 · answered by zamir 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Moving air brings away partial heat from your skin.
2006-09-01 01:38:51 · answer #6 · answered by marcustonchum 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Moving air helps the moisture on your skin to evaporate which cools you. Its not the air that cools you, its that water is evaporating.
2006-09-03 15:46:23 · answer #7 · answered by kemchan2 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Feeling cooler for human but not for a thermometer it will show the same temperature.Because it has no sweat,
2006-09-01 20:24:54 · answer #8 · answered by dwarf 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There is always a certain amount of energy (internal energy) associated with gas molecules. When the gas molecules are at rest, they have their internal energy stored as potential energy, which in-turn is thermal energy (higher temperature). When the gas molecules are in motion, they spend their potential energy (thermal energy) and get it converted into kinetic energy (for movement), which results in a lowering of the temperature of the gas molecules as they lose their potential energy.
2006-08-26 19:28:45 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
This is a challenging question, and one that has been confusing me for many years.
2016-08-23 05:27:40 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋