Which of the following is a reason why a concrete floor feels colder to the bare feet than a mat on the same floor during the rainy season?
Answer Details
The reason why a concrete floor feels colder to the bare feet than a mat on the same floor during the rainy season is that the concrete floor is a better conductor of heat than the mat.
Heat is transferred from a warmer object to a cooler object by three modes of heat transfer: conduction, convection, and radiation. Conduction is the transfer of heat through a material without any perceptible motion of the material. When two objects are in contact with each other, heat is transferred from the warmer object to the cooler object by conduction.
In this case, when the bare feet touch the mat or the concrete floor, heat flows from the feet to the mat or the floor by conduction. The rate of heat transfer depends on the thermal conductivity of the materials. Thermal conductivity is the property of a material that determines how well it conducts heat.
Concrete is a dense material and has a higher thermal conductivity than most materials used to make mats, such as rubber or fabric. This means that the concrete floor can extract heat from the bare feet more efficiently than the mat. As a result, the bare feet feel colder when in contact with the concrete floor than when in contact with the mat.
Therefore, the correct option is that the concrete floor is a better conductor of heat than the mat, which results in the bare feet feeling colder when in contact with the floor than when in contact with the mat during the rainy season.