But you can't make cold. Nobody can. You can only move heat out.
- So a refrigerant boils in a pipe inside the fridge, soaking up heat from your food.
- But that gas is colder than your kitchen, and heat only flows from hot to cold.
- So a compressor squeezes it until it's hotter than your kitchen, and coils on the back pour the heat into the room.
- But it's still under high pressure, and too warm to chill anything.
- So it's forced through a thin tube. The pressure drops, and it's freezing cold again.
- But left running nonstop, it would freeze your milk.
- So a thermostat switches the compressor off at around four degrees Celsius.
Your fridge never makes cold. It just moves heat, from your food into your kitchen.