What is this copper thing?

Wouldn't the heat pipe originally have had some low boiling point liquid sealed inside of it? Where the liquid would boil at the CPU chip end, the vapor travel up the pipe to the cool end, condense, (giving up heat) and then run back down the pipe to the CPU as a liquid to start the cycle all over again?

I would guess that the strands of fine copper wire inside the tubes acted to improve the heat transfer into the liquid.



Can anyone offer any insight if this is the way they worked?

Jon.