Why does the colour red symbolize heat, while blue symbolizes coldness? Shouldn't it be the other way around? I mean, a blue flame is hotter than a red flame.
by 
Fluffdragon
ANSWERS: 6
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But nothing about red really symbolizes heat...Well, not that I can think of, anyways
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Yeah, but blue ice is colder than red flame!
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My assumption would be that red - which is also the universal colour for fire/danger/high voltage/stop, etc - is used to symbolise heat because people automatically associate the colour with danger. In some instances, red literally is the colour of heat, and more people would be familiar with seeing that than they would with knowing that a blue flame is actually hotter than a red/orange flame. As for blue symbolizing coldness, I can only assume that it has something to do with the colour our lips turn when we are freezing.
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Blue is indeed a hotter flame. However, the first instances of fire that we are exposed to are usually small flames e.g. matchsticks, lighters, fireplaces, bonfires, and the flames there are yellow/orange. Then factor in sunburn -red, electric hobs/heaters are red, and perhaps also that we associate red with emotional warmth, draw red hearts to symbolise love and all these different exmaples probably help to make psychological links between warmer colours e.g. red/orange and warmth. Blue on the other hand - we associate blue with water, which tends to be cold e.g. rain, river, unheated tap water, drinking water etc. It is percieved as a calming colour, rather than stirring emotions up it is perhaps more clinical and somehow more devoid of emotion. It you have a room painted a blue colour rather than a red colour, it feels somehow colder. This is all conjecture on my part, but does it make sense?
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That does seem like an interesting conundrum... But you have to keep in mind, blue flames weren't very likely to occur naturally before modern technology was created to make hotter flames. When fire was first discovered, there were no gas lamps, only wood fires and such, which almost always created a red-hued flame, and most natural fire, as in the kind that could be created by rubbing two sticks together, would have given off a mostly red-hued light. And that era, the era before blue flames were even something you would encounter in large quantities in day-to-day life, was when those conceptions were formed. Not in this modern era of gas stoves and butane lighters.
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Because if you heat meatal to a high temperature it glows red, and if someone gets hyputhermia they turn blue.
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