Schematic illustration of a wind mill.

Hot Hand

How Does Friction Create Heat?

 

Materials

  • none

Try This

  1. Hold your palm up and think about its temperature. Is your hand warm? Cold?
  2. Rub the palm of your other hand quickly back and forth on your clothes or a blanket.
  3. Compare how warm your hands feel to one another.

What's Going On?

When you rubbed your hand back and forth, the friction caused your skin molecules to vibrate faster. We feel this as heat. Friction causes heat and other kinds of energy to form in many ways around us. The friction between the moving parts in a computer requires a fan to cool it down, and the friction of moving air can result in lightning storms.

Different animals can feel heat in different ways. Many creatures, like certain snakes, can feel heat at a distance. Some beetles can feel the heat of a forest fire from many miles away.

Schematic illustration of rubbing the palm of the hand.