by Guest » Thu Mar 17, 2005 4:02 am
One is a unit of heat energy, one is a unit of temperature. You can't convert from one to the other, you have to understand the medium acted on.
A BTU is the amount of heat required to heat one pound of water one degree F (at some specified temperature since it isn't exactly constant). So 500,000 BTU would heat 500,000 lbs of water 1 degree F, or 50,000 lbs of water 10 degrees F, or . . . You get the idea. Other substances have other heat capacities, so above is only true for water.