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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • On point 4, the key part that you are missing is that evaporation /takes/ energy. The standard central air works closer to how you are thinking by the evaporator above your furnace taking heat to then be dumped out by the condenser outside. This is necessary because it is a closed system that must continually reuse the refrigerant.

    Sweat, and the swamp cooler you have here, are not closed systems and therefore don’t have to “dump” heat. Energy was transferred to the water molecules to cause them to evaporate. As latent heat exists (Google this if you are still confused) the heat energy has been transferred to “evaporation” energy and so the heat can be reduced without breaking any thermal laws.

    Basically the water on your skin or in the swamp cooler is like a wall that heat has to break down. The heat can do this, and does get through but has been reduced by the work and is therefore less strong (lower temperature.

    There was no subtraction or addition to total energy when you look at the whole process. Heat energy was transferred to kinetic energy to cause the state change of the water.

    Central AC has to dump heat to reuse the refrigerant. The swamp cooler doesn’t have to dump heat but needs to be refilled often as the evaporation of water takes matter away from the system.