Poll: do we know what "cold" is? Or, rather, do we only know what our idea of cold is? Give reasons.

Question

sunestauromai...you are correct, but it is relative to an absolute: whatever temperature the particular man or woman in question finds easiest to exist in. For me, it is 74 degrees.

Answer 1

-273.15 C is cold. All else is relative ;-)
...
As has been pointed out, cold is not a quantifiable quality. It is merely a relative lack of heat. Whether it is thought of in terms of British Thermal Units (BTU), kilowatt hours, joules, or maybe even newton-meters makes no difference. Heat is energy in its simplest form, so that makes cold a kind of anti-energy. One of my professors used the phrase "energy hole" to describe the point in a system at which energy must be added for the system to reach or maintain equilibrium.

Obviously you got my reference to "absolute zero" and have at least some concept of the effect reaching that temperature has on matter. While there are some people who recognize the absolute notion of cold (like people working in cryo labs), most people do not. Their only source for comparison is their own feeling of what constitutes cold. At around -40 degrees most humans lose the ability to compare varying cold temperatures... humans are often incapable of distinguishing -40 and -60. At that point exposed skin freezes almost instantly and cellular damage begins to occur rapidly.

In terms of human comfort, hot and cold are always relative. Different people are described as hot or cold "natured" and prefer to spend their lives at different temperatures... that is just one of the ways we are all different.

Answer 2

This is in R & S because you think cold is the absense of heat and dark is the absense of light, sin is the absense of good, right, or am I completely off...?

Scientifically, yes, we know what cold is, the colder something is the less movement is going on, and absolute zero is the point molecules are not moving at all.

Also, we can feel the cold, but really what is happening is the heat from our body is escaping. Cold can not go into you, but heat can diffuse out from areas of higher concentration to areas of lower concentration.

And we can see "the cold", or rather that it is cold outside when our breath in the winter, or water evaporating over a pond.

Answer 3

"Cold" as an entity does not exist. It is a condition of reduced relative heat. Heat is a form of energy that speeds up molecules. Cold is when there is insufficient energy to keep the molecules at speed, so they slow down.

In common parlance, "cold" refers a condition where there's not enough heat to keep us comfortable.

And just to keep this answer appropriate for the R&S section, cold is to heat as atheism is to theism: Each is the absence of the other.

^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^

Answer 4

I knew some dumbass was going to say there is no such thing as cold because of it being an absence of heat. Well when it is less warm, there is an absence of heat. Darkness means there is an absence of light, just because it isn't pitch black doesn't mean we say less light, do we? No, we say it is ******* dark.

Answer 5

"Cold" is a very relative term. Even the same person may define it differently from day to day. It seems to me we only know what "cold" is in relation to ourselves, and then only in the moment.

Answer 6

Cold is just fahrenheitly challenged.
Cold is snowman-friendly.
Cold is slower than hot. Anyone can catch cold! :D

Seriously, sorry but I don't understand the point of your question.

Answer 7

Cold is the absence of heat-energy. It is a word we use to describe the absence of something else.

By the way, before you finish, Einstein wasn' t involved.

Answer 8

cold can't be measured, but heat can.... the temperature of something is independent of how we (humans) sense it. Things would be hot even if humans didn't exist.

Are you making a religious analogy? and to what?

Answer 9

It is warm in Mississippi, It is cool here, in Illinois, but THIS question was asked in R&S so what is cold? It is that I am not in Hell where it is Hot right now.

Answer 10

There is no such thing as cold. There is only the absence of heat. Heat transfers from warm to less warm and in that direction only.