Science Common Sense

1215 - Why does heat tend to move from a high-temperature area to a low-temperature area.

Heat tends to move from a high-temperature area to a low-temperature area because of the way tiny particles called molecules behave. When something is hot, its molecules are moving really fast. When these fast-moving molecules bump into slower-moving molecules in a cooler area, they transfer some of their energy to them.

Think of it like a crowd of excited kids running around in a park, and nearby, a group of kids are standing still, doing nothing. As the excited kids bump into the quiet kids, they start to make them move and get excited too. This is kind of like what's happening with the hot molecules transferring their energy to the cooler molecules.

This keeps happening until the whole area has the same temperature, and the heat has spread out evenly. That's why heat always tries to move from hot to cold, to reach a balance.