Radiation Heat Pump: Is It Possible?

AI Thread Summary
The discussion centers on the feasibility of a radiation heat pump that could transfer heat from a hot body to a cold one by manipulating electromagnetic radiation. Participants argue that while it's theoretically interesting, creating an optical system to deflect all infrared wavelengths is impractical, as the system would ultimately heat up and radiate energy back to the cold body. The second law of thermodynamics is cited, emphasizing that a low-temperature object cannot radiate energy to a higher-temperature object. Some express skepticism about the law, suggesting that current understanding may be limiting innovation. Ultimately, the consensus is that the concept is not viable within established physics.
philrainey
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if everything emits radiation, if you can stop the radiation from a hot body to a cold one but let the radiation from the cold to the hot you would have a type of heat pump.if you had a sphere (the hot body )with a vacuum in it and a relativey small cold body in the middle perhaps the electromagnetic radiation from the sphere to the middle cold body can be bent so that it misses the cold body. Is this just silly thinking? what do you think?
 
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Are you going to tell me why it dosn't work, is it that we can't really bend radiation?
 
It would be tricky to make an optical system that could deflect all infrared wavelengths from a sphere to miss a sphere in the centre.
BUT even assuming you could, the optical system would itself heat up to the same temperature as the outer sphere - and then it would radiate just as much heat to the inner cold sphere.
 
I know that the cold body would have to be relatively hot to our tempertures say 1500 degree C as otherwise the area of it would have to be huge to radiate any decent amount of radiation. It would be a heat pump in the higher tempertures. Why will this not work? Simple terms please not high physics.
 
thankyou mgb phys, I take it we have no other way to bend eletromagnetic radiation other than refraction or positioning black holes around it.
 
thats the thing you see I don't believe the second law of thermodynamics , I think we just have not discovered how to do it. In fact I think people believing this "law" is hindering thinking.
 
You are entitled to believe whatever you want - but that isn't physics and so there is nothing to discuss here.

Please don't waste your life chasing ghosts.
 

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