The main purpose of a laptop cooling pad is to cool your laptop. But they also provide stability for your laptop, preventing it from overheating by getting in contact with or close to other things like furniture, or concrete flooring which may affect the temperature. It does this in two ways; ventilation and insulation. Ventilation will allow air to trickle through and cool off your laptop and surface below which creates a warmer layer of air that acts as an insulator against the cooler outside temperature. Insulation works because once you've created that warm layer of air, other things like furniture won't be able to penetrate it if left there too long, nor will concrete as much as possible (the less contact it makes with the cold surface)...