Heat

In physics, heat is energy as it spontaneously passes between a system and its surroundings, other than as work or with the transfer of matter. In thermodynamics, finer detail of the process of transfer is in principle unspecified. When there is a suitable physical pathway, heat transfer occurs from a hotter to a colder body. The transfer can be direct, by contact, from the source to the destination body, as in conduction combined with radiation, or remote, as in radiation without conduction; or indirect, by conduction and radiation through a thick solid wall, or by way of an intermediate fluid body, as in convective circulation.

Originally, quantity of heat transferred was measured by how much it changed the states of participating bodies, for example, as amount of ice melted, or change in temperature, without work or matter transfer. Such measurement is possible because many bodies, over most temperature ranges, expand reversibly on being heated. This is called thermal expansion.

Distraction

Distraction is the process of diverting the attention of an individual or group from the desired area of focus and thereby blocking or diminishing the reception of desired information. Distraction is caused by: the lack of ability to pay attention; lack of interest in the object of attention; or the great intensity, novelty or attractiveness of something other than the object of attention. Distractions come from both external sources, and internal sources.

In the workplace

Multitasking could also be considered as distraction in situations requiring full attention on a single object (e.g., sports, academic tests, performance). The issue of distraction in the workplace is studied in interruption science. According to Gloria Mark, a leader in interruption science, the average knowledge worker switches tasks every three minutes, and, once distracted, a worker takes nearly a half-hour to resume the original task.

In fiction

In works of fiction, distraction is often used as a source of comedy, whether the amusement comes from the gullibility of those distracted or the strangeness of whatever is utilized to create the distraction.

Woman

A woman is a female human. The term woman is usually reserved for an adult, with the term girl being the usual term for a female child or adolescent. The term woman is also sometimes used to identify a female human, regardless of age, as in phrases such as "women's rights". "Woman" may also refer to a person's gender identity. Women with typical genetic development are usually capable of giving birth from puberty until menopause. In the context of gender identity, transgender people who are biologically determined to be male and identify as women cannot give birth. Some intersex people who identify as women cannot give birth due to either sterility or inheriting one or more Y chromosomes. In extremely rare cases, people who have Swyer syndrome can give birth with medical assistance. Throughout history women have assumed or been assigned various social roles.

Etymology

The spelling of woman in English has progressed over the past millennium from wīfmann to wīmmann to wumman, and finally, the modern spelling woman. In Old English, wīfmann meant "female human", whereas wēr meant "male human". Mann or monn had a gender-neutral meaning of "human", corresponding to Modern English "person" or "someone"; however, subsequent to the Norman Conquest, man began to be used more in reference to "male human", and by the late 13th century had begun to eclipse usage of the older term wēr. The medial labial consonants f and m in wīfmann coalesced into the modern form "woman", while the initial element, which meant "female", underwent semantic narrowing to the sense of a married woman ("wife"). It is a popular misconception that the term "woman" is etymologically connected with "womb", which is from a separate Old English word, wambe meaning "stomach" (of male or female; modern German retains the colloquial term "Wampe" from Middle High German for "potbelly"). Nevertheless, such a false derivation of "woman" has appeared in print.