Rate of Cooling of a liquid
Venki Ramachandran
A spread sheet is very
useful to organize data and represent it in a graphical form.
Given below is an interesting every day phenomenon, water cooling
down from boiling point to room temperature. For this, water is
first heated till it reaches boiling point (typically 212 degrees
Fahrenheit at sea level) and then it is allowed to cool. The temperature
is measured every minute for about thirty minutes. The rate of
cooling is of course proportional to the difference in tempertures
between the water and the environment. Greater the difference,
faster the rate of cooling. As can be seen, after a while, the
gradient of the curve starts flattening out and would eventually
become flat once the water reaches room temperature.
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