The Heat Factor

Here is where the confusion lives. Heat is not a thing that objects contain — it is the transfer of thermal energy from a hotter object to a cooler one. Heat is a process, not a property. When you touch a hot stove, energy flows from stove to hand.

Energy always flows from hot to cold, never the reverse without external work. Your refrigerator pumps heat from its cold interior to the warm kitchen, but only by burning electricity to force the transfer. This one-way flow is why the universe slowly cools.