Directions
Now we know that heat is all about the movement of molecules. Let’s take a closer look at that idea in the kitchen. Scientifically speaking, cooking is a process of transferring heat to food.
Imagine we’re making a recipe that begins: “Pre-heat a saucepan.” That’s easy. To warm the pan, we set it on a burner (the heat source) and turn on the power.
While we’re waiting for the pan to heat, we can see one form of heat transfer in action: conduction, a way of transferring heat through solid substances.
First, the hot burner directly transfers, or conducts, heat to the metal pan. Then as the molecules in the pan start vibrating, they bump into nearby molecules and get them moving faster and faster. Pretty soon the whole pan is hot.