Our electricity here at home is provided by the Oklahoma Electric Cooperative. As a coop member, we receive a monthly newsletter, OEC News. It is a well prepared publication with various topics, including information on energy use and conservation. As an energy enthusiast myself, I enjoy reading it and often learn something new.

This month I learned some amazing information from nationally-syndicated energy management expert James Dulley. In fact, the information was so shocking that I wouldn’t believe it if Mr. Dulley’s education credentials weren’t so distinguished:

Harvard University – Doctoral Candidate (Technology)
University of Cincinnati – M.B.A. (Industrial Management)
University of Cincinnati – B.S. (Mechanical Engineering)

In response to a question regarding how a house loses and gains heat, Dulley stressed the importance of a “sound understanding” on the basics of heat transfer.

… your question about heat transfer flowing upward is a common fallacy. Heat is just one form of electromagnetic energy. Heat energy flows in all directions equally and is not affected by gravity.

Dulley then uses the example of a metal block with a heating element in the center which would result in an equal temperature on all sides. While I somewhat agree with Dulley’s example, there is one minor point that comes to mind: very few creatures on earth make their homes in solid metal blocks. Every home I know of contains a fluid; usually air, or in the case of fish, water.

What I used to believe was that when such fluids gain heat, the heated molecules become “excited”, causing them to expand, thereby making them less dense. Since density is proportional to mass (density = mass/volume), and mass related to weight (weight = mass X acceleration of gravity), the cooler, more dense molecules would be heavier. Since the force of gravity in most homes on earth is downward, those molecules sink, causing the warmer, less dense molecules to rise, or flow upwpard, taking much of their heat energy with them. People (and fish) living in two story homes would likely attest to this phenomenon.

But what really amazed me was Dulley’s statement that nullified Einstein’s famous equation: E = mc² (Energy = mass X the speed of light squared). If the well educated Dulley is correct in his statement that energy is not affected by gravity, it would mean that energy has no mass whatsoever, thereby nullifying a theory by, who use to be, perhaps the most respected mathematician and physicist in history.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 4th, 2009 at 11:19 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.