A Devil of a Misconception

Okay, ha ha.  This is kind of funny, but it merits discussion because of the Stupid phrase “heat rises”.  That’s utter nonsense, and we’re going to talk about why.

People often use heat as a synonym for hotness or temperature, but it’s not the same thing.  From a physics standpoint, temperature is a measure of the average kinetic energy of the molecules in a body.  When an object is hot, its molecules move around faster than they do when the object is cold.  Heat is the spontaneous transfer of thermal energy from a region with high temperature to a region with low temperature.  If you have a block of, say, iron, with a temperature of 400º Celsius, and you place it right next to an iron block with a temperature of 20º Celsius, heat will flow from the 400º block to the 20º block until their temperatures are the same.  (This example ignores heat lost to or gained from the surroundings, which will complicate the issue somewhat.)

Why does heat flow from the hot block to the cold block when they touch?  The hot block’s atoms are vibrating faster, with more energy.  When the atoms of the hot block vibrate against the atoms of the cold block, vibrational energy gets transferred primarily in one direction; from hot to cold.  The hot block loses energy while the cold block gains it.  The hot block’s atoms decrease their wiggling, while the cold block’s atoms increase.  The situation reaches equilibrium when both blocks’ atoms have the same average kinetic energy; i.e. when they have the same temperature.

So heat itself – as a transfer of thermal energy – does not have a natural tendency to move upward; it follows the temperature gradient, whatever direction that may be.

But perhaps you know from experience that the attic of a house is warmer than the lower levels, or that steam rises from the surface of boiling water to form droplets on the lid of a pot.  And of course hot air balloons soar above the countryside.  Aren’t these textbook examples of heat rising?

Well, they may be textbook examples; however, any textbook that parrots the phrase “heat rises” is contributing to a widespread misconception.  But now we’re no closer to understanding the problem:  If heat has no natural tendency to rise, why is it that, especially in gases, hot regions tend to rise up while cold regions tend to sink?

Slightly more sophisticated textbooks use density and buoyancy as a tool to explain why, say, a hot air balloon is capable of soaring above the countryside.  As a parcel of air is heated, its molecules move faster, they correctly point out.  As the molecules move faster, they tend to expand a bit, which lowers the overall density of the parcel.  The surrounding air, which is cooler and therefore more dense, buoys the hot air parcel skyward, in much the same way that dense seawater buoys up an ocean liner.

This explanation is better than the perfunctory “heat rises” account, and it would probably suffice for an introductory physical science class, but the sharp student will see through it.  Sure, it makes sense to claim that the air in a hot air balloon rises because it is more-or-less thermally isolated from the surrounding air, but that doesn’t explain why an unconstrained warm air mass tends to rise or why a similarly unconstrained cold air mass tends to sink, as in weather systems.  After all, there is no envelope or barrier between these two air masses.  Shouldn’t they interact and exchange heat, thereby equalizing their temperatures and preventing any net movement of the air?

In the absence of gravity, they might.  We have to dig deeper if we want to really understand why a warm air mass would rise above a cool air mass (or why the first level of Hell would be the hottest).  We have to get all the way down to the molecular level.

All molecules are subject to gravity, and they experience a downward force that is proportional to their mass.  But molecules – particularly gas molecules – also bounce around randomly and collide with other molecules.  Now this might sound bizarre, but in a body of colliding molecules, there is a net tendency to transfer momentum upwards – in other words, the bazillions of collisions that happen with a typical gas parcel tend to work against the pull of gravity.

When a parcel of air gets heated, its molecules speed up (on average) which means there are more frequent collisions within that parcel; ergo, there is an increase in the net upward momentum of the parcel’s molecules.  Heating a gas actually increases its parcels’ ability to bounce themselves away from the ground.  The molecules in a cold air parcel collide less frequently, ergo, the molecules tend to bounce around less vigorously.  When a cold air mass meets a warm air mass, the molecules in the warm air mass naturally tend to bounce off of and above the molecules in the cold air mass.

(On a related note, when powerful solar flares strike Earth, they dump lots of energy into Earth’s atmosphere, causing it to expand outward.  This can increase the drag on Earth-orbiting satellites and shorten their useful lives.)

So to sum up:

• Heat has no inherent tendency to rise, even in Hell.
• Heat is the transfer of thermal energy from regions of high temperature to regions of low temperature.
• The molecules in a hot air mass move around faster, which means they collide more frequently than the molecules in an adjacent cold air mass.
• The increased frequency of collisions in the hot air mass enhances the molecules’ upward momentum compared to molecules in a colder air mass, therefore:
• A hot air mass tends to rise above a cold air mass.

I find it inexcusable that the devil is lecturing Joe about his lack of science knowledge, especially when he doesn’t quite get it himself.  According to some theologies, Old Scratch was present almost from the beginning of Creation (in fact, some sects hold that Satan is the author of the physical world.)  You’d expect him to be more well-versed in the physics of the atmosphere.  Then again, Satan has been called the Father of Lies; maybe he delights in spreading scientific misconceptions?

One more thing before I sign off…and this is really just a nitpick:  How is it that Satan did not know Joe’s name, but was able to determine that this was the same Joe that cheated on a test in 3rd grade?

Well, There IS An Abomination Here

In what way does this make sense?

Satan is the ultimate bad guy in many religions. He is the deceiver, the spinner of evil, the author of everything foul (In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he created this meme). In the video game of spiritual warfare, Satan is the final boss battle. If you’re devout, there is nobody and nothing to be hated and shunned more than Old Scratch himself.

Except for the female reproductive system, apparently. I’m not sure in what way the female reproductive system is comparable to the Prince of Darkness, but then again I’m not a misogynist. In order to understand this meme, I have to step inside the mind of somebody who hates and fears women and the things they can do with their wombs.

Unfortunately, finding somebody to serve as my woman-hating avatar is frighteningly easy. The Southern Poverty Law Center presents a list of blogs and websites that are overtly misogynistic in their message: the overarching statement from each of these sites is that women are evil, slutty, disease-ridden whores and that feminism is a terrorist movement whose only goal is to further torment the long suffering male of the species. I’m not even putting words in their mouths…the SPLC page provides snippets from each blog and that’s pretty much what they say.

If you’re angry about the plight of males in this increasingly female-dominated world, then you are clearly living in a constant dream state. I believe this is another instance of Perceived Reverse Victimization. I’ve written about this before, and it doesn’t seem to have gone away. The people that have been in charge for most of history suddenly feel oppressed when they are asked to stop being such jerks and to treat others with fairness.

With no evidence, I would be willing to bet that each of these men has had their fragile egos bruised at some point by a woman. Maybe the girl of their dreams rejected their prom invitation. Perhaps they were fired from a job after sexual harassment charges were lodged against them, and they just don’t understand what everybody’s so upset about – it must be women’s fault. In any case, I believe they are projecting deeply closeted concerns about their own adequacy onto an entire half of the population. In a way, I feel sorry for them; their attitudes probably stem from the culture of misogyny in which they were raised. Parents, take note: if you raise your children in an atmosphere of misogyny, don’t be surprised when your sons grow up despising women and treating them like filth. There’s a clear cycle of cause and effect.

Now let’s talk about the people that pass this meme along. I don’t know that all of them are woman-hating ass-hats, but they clearly thought this image was funny, so maybe they aren’t thinking hard enough about what the meme is actually saying. Let me put it into terms that everybody can understand: if you pass along this meme (without tearing it apart as misogynistic and stupid) then you give your assent to its message: that the part of a woman responsible for creating life – the part that may one day give shelter to your own children – is a dark and frightening place and the only apt comparison is the most evil being in all of Judeo-Christian mythology. Is that what you meant to say?