this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2025
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The heat isn’t transmitted via photons, it’s transmitted via convection. The air acts as a medium to transmit the heat energy outward. The heating element itself emits photons because it gets hot enough where the atoms within vibrate at a frequency which reaches the visible spectrum of light. That’s why cooler elements glow red (lower frequency) and hotter elements glow blue (higher frequency). Most of the heat energy is not contained in the photons, you need an output on the level of the sun to achieve that. With regards to the sun, all of the energy is carried by radiation anyway, because convective currents can’t travel in the vacuum of space.
They didn't say most of the heat was carried by photons. They said the photons turn into heat when they're absorbed by atoms. That's how radiative heat works, and yeah, most of the heat from a space heater isn't radiative, but some is. All of the light you see turns into heat, so it isn't lost. A tiny fraction will be lost through some means, but approximately 100% is turned into heat in the room at some point.