 For example, a bar may be cold at one end and hot at the other, but after a state of steady-state conduction is reached, the spatial gradient of temperatures along the bar does not change any further, as time proceeds.Instead, the temperature remains constant at any given cross-section of the rod normal to the direction of heat transfer, and this temperature varies linearly in space in the case where there is no heat generation in the rod.In steady-state conduction, all the laws of direct current electrical conduction can be applied to "heat currents".