Why is the back of your fridge warm?
- A fridge does not make cold: it pumps heat out of the box.
- Inside, a liquid boils colder than ice and soaks up the heat.
- In 1833, 180 tons of Boston ice sailed four months to India.
Your fridge is not a box of cold. It is a heat pump.
Words for the text
- heat
- The energy that makes things warm.
- molecule
- A very, very small part of something. You cannot see it.
- evaporate
- When a liquid slowly goes into the air.
- refrigerant
- The special liquid that goes around in the pipes of a fridge.
- compressor
- The small pump in a fridge. It squeezes the gas.
The opening of the text
A heater in your kitchen
Put your hand behind your fridge, near the floor. You can feel warm air there. Inside, the fridge is cold. But at the back, it is warm. This is not a problem. It is the whole secret of the fridge.
Most people think a fridge makes cold, like a stove makes heat. It is a natural idea, but it is wrong. A fridge does not make cold at all. To understand this, we need to ask a simple question. What is cold?
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