Question

Is air a bad or good conductor?

Answer 1

hey mate

Air is a poor conductor of electricity .

But under specific conditions air can conduct electric current.

Like the lightning that happens during rainfall.

Hence air is a bad conductor except for some situations.

hope it helps.

☆☆☆

Answer 2

Answer:

Well, the argument is not very well put:

Because the air is a bad conductor of heat the soup stays hot longer: only the first layer of air touching the soup gets hot fast, and heat is not transmitted efficiently to the bulk of air.

For soup, in contrast to thermos, evaporation cooling should also be considered. Convection by continuously replacing the contacting layer of air increases the heat transfer to the bulk of air by conduction and at the same time the rate of evaporation increases, increasing cooling. So the soup cools faster than if there were no convection.

If air were a good conductor of heat, the soup would cool fast, as in a metal plate on a metal surface.

You could go through a read of the wiki article.

Edit: Georg's comment makes me add that of course the soup would be also cooling because it will be radiating with the corresponding to its temperature black body spectrum. Convection increases the rate of heat loss over the loss through radiation.

To address the title, which differs from the questions in the content:

Why is air a poor conductor of heat?