The literal meaning of air conditioning is the conditioning of air by cooling it, heating it, cleaning it, and controlling it's moisture level in order to meet the demands of both people and machines.
An air conditioner transfers heat from the inside of a room or building, where it is not wanted, either to the outside of the room or to the outside of the building. The laws of physics tell us that we cannot create or destroy energy (in this case heat) but can only transform it from one form to another. This is the reason why we can't make the heat from a contained space magically disappear using a totally self contained box. An air conditioning system containing refrigerant must be used to capture the heat and then transfer it either to air (creating warm air) or to water (creating warm water) which is then released elsewhere. While there are many different physical configurations possible for air conditioning systems, only "packaged portable units" or units that are contained in one box will be described here.
