I notice this a lot while cooking. It seems really easy to heat up something all the way through on the stove, but if I want to cool or chill something that's hot (or even room temperature), it seems to take forever, even if I put it in the freezer.
Is it because of the laws of thermodynamics? Is it because the average freezer isn't as powerful as the average stove? Or is it something else altogether?
2007-02-12 05:29:05 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
Heating something up is adding heat energy.
Cooling something is not adding cold energy (no such thing of course) but removing heat energy.
Think of heat like a bag of red m&ms. You have your bag of red m&ms and a bowl of mixed m&m (some red, some blue, some green some brown in equal amounts).
'Heating' the m&ms would be to add the bag of red m&ms to the bowl and stir. Pretty easy.
'Cooling' the m&ms would be like picking all the red ones out of the bowl. Pretty difficult (as far as time consumption).
2007-02-12 05:53:41 · answer #1 · answered by Justin 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
When you heat something up on the stove, you've probably got a temperature differential between the thing being cooked and the flame of around 400 degrees: let's say 380deg. If you put your hot (100deg) stuff in the freezer, in addition to doing the freezer no good, you have a temp. differential of only about 120deg, so it will take over 3 times longer to cool down.
2007-02-12 14:03:37 · answer #2 · answered by JJ 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You already got some good answers but it will be easy to cool if we allow say chilled running water to circulate on the outside of the heated vessel or allow a fan to blow on the vessel to be cooled. Then the heated water or air is conducted away and fresh water or air at a lower temperature is available for transporting the heat.
The temperature differential and the conduction / convection or lack of it etc. decide the rate of heat removal.
2007-02-12 14:10:25 · answer #3 · answered by Swamy 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
When you heat something up, the temperature of the flame is much higher than the temperature you are trying to get to. For cooling things down, the temperature for cooling is the temperature you are trying to get to, so it takes much longer. If you cooled it in a freezer, it would cool much more rapidly.
2007-02-12 13:36:35 · answer #4 · answered by bozo 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
To increase temperature or decrease temperature requires the same amount of BTU's (British Thermal Units).The amount of energy it takes to change Ice at 32 degrees F.. to water at 32 degrees F. The reason it takes longer is You using more btu's to heat it than to cool it.
2007-02-12 14:59:07 · answer #5 · answered by unpop5 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋