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Comment by jvanderbot | Hacker News Reader

Wait so hot objects have molecules with greater nuclear energy? This seems wrong. Are they emitting energy like radiation? I suppose that makes some sense, and would in fact support the asymmetry.

Without thinking about it I thought heat was kinetic energy. And I don't see how collisions would transfer kinetic energy in positive direction any better than negative direction.

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I can't see any mention or implication of 'nuclear' - where do you see that?

Black body radiation, the emission of photons or EM radiation is one area to dig into for more information.

But also note the all mater you interact with is almost entirely comprised of empty space, despite the illusion of solidness at our scale.

Hot molecules move faster, it’s just kinetic energy.

If this were the case, then how can a solid have a temperature at all? Especially crystalline solids, where all the molecules/elements are bound in a lattice?

The molecules in a crystal still vibrate kinetically. A solid with no molecular motion would be at absolute zero temperature.

Wouldn't a fair amount of the thermal energy be hanging out in the bonds themselves? The stress in the system has to count for something.

I'm imagining a bunch of potential energy being stored in the fields at any given moment.

Absolutely, but that’s not heat. Things like heat produced from burning wood is an example of potential energy of binds getting released as kinetic energy + photons.

And heating/cooling is just transfer of kinetic energy? Seems strange if so.

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