In the study of heat transfer, Newton's law of cooling is a physical law which states that The rate of heat loss of a body is directly proportional to the difference in the temperatures between the body and its environment. The law is frequently qualified to include the condition that the temperature difference is small and the nature of heat transfer mechanism remains the same. As such, it is equivalent to a statement that the heat transfer coefficient, which mediates between heat losses and temperature differences, is a constant.
In heat conduction, Newton's Law is generally followed as a consequence of Fourier's law. The thermal conductivity of most materials is only weakly dependent on temperature, so the constant heat transfer coefficient condition is generally met. In convective heat transfer, Newton's Law is followed for forced air or pumped fluid cooling, where the properties of the fluid do not vary strongly with temperature, but it is only approximately true for buoyancy-driven convection, where the velocity of the flow increases with temperature difference. In the case of heat transfer by thermal radiation, Newton's law of cooling holds only for very small temperature differences.
When stated in terms of temperature differences, Newton's law (with several further simplifying assumptions, such as a low Biot number and a temperature-independent heat capacity) results in a simple differential equation expressing temperature-difference as a function of time. The solution to that equation describes an exponential decrease of temperature-difference over time. This characteristic decay of the temperature-difference is also associated with Newton's law of cooling.
Historical background
Isaac Newton published his work on cooling anonymously in 1701 as "Scala graduum Caloris. Calorum Descriptiones & signa" in Philosophical Transactions, volume 22, issue 270.
Newton did not originally state his law in the above form in 1701. Rather, using today's terms, Newton noted after some mathematical manipulation that the rate of temperature change of a body is proportional to the difference in temperatures between the body and its surroundings. This final simplest version of the law, given by Newton himself, was partly due to confusion in Newton's time between the concepts of heat and temperature, which would not be fully disentangled until much later.
In 2020, Maruyama and Moriya repeated Newton's experiments with modern apparatus, and they applied modern data reduction techniques. In particular, these investigators took account of thermal radiation at high temperatures (as for the molten metals Newton used), and they accounted for buoyancy effects on the air flow. By comparison to Newton's original data, they concluded that his measurements (from 1692 to 1693) had been "quite accurate".
Relationship to mechanism of cooling
Convection cooling is sometimes said to be governed by "Newton's law of cooling." When the heat transfer coefficient is independent, or relatively independent, of the temperature difference between object and environment, Newton's law is followed. The law holds well for forced air and pumped liquid cooling, where the fluid velocity does not rise with increasing temperature difference. Newton's law is most closely obeyed in purely conduction-type cooling. However, the heat transfer coefficient is a function of the temperature difference in natural convective (buoyancy driven) heat transfer. In that case, Newton's law only approximates the result when the temperature difference is relatively small. Newton himself realized this limitation.
A correction to Newton's law concerning convection for larger temperature differentials by including an exponent, was made in 1817 by Dulong and Petit. (These men are better-known for their formulation of the Dulong–Petit law concerning the molar specific heat capacity of a crystal.)
Another situation that does not obey Newton's law is radiative heat transfer. Radiative cooling is better described by the Stefan–Boltzmann law in which the heat transfer rate varies as the difference in the 4th powers of the absolute temperatures of the object and of its environment.
Mathematical formulation of Newton's law
The statement of Newton's law used in the heat transfer literature puts into mathematics the idea that the rate of heat loss of a body is proportional to the difference in temperatures between the body and its surroundings. For a temperature-independent heat transfer coefficient, the statement is: