Coffee gets cold.
There is a world of philosophy in that simple statement.
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The Scientist
Life and Times of a permanently bemused British postdoc in exile.
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Coffee
- Date:
- Wednesday, 30 Apr il 2008 - 00:45 GMT
Last updated: Wednesday, 30 Apr 2008 - 00:45 GMT
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Comments
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In high school physics we spent one day in a computer lab to model how coffee cools down over time. The variables were room temperature, start temperature of coffee and probably different types of cups. The only thing I clearly remember from the whole experiment is: coffee gets cold if you leave it for too long.
We could have done the experiment with real coffee in the cafeteria and learned just as much, but I guess there was some kind of required computer lesson in the curriculum.
My mother always used to quote us this little saw:
“The hotter body will get cooler – as a rule-r.” When I was a little girl I didn’t get it and thought she was referring to measuring instruments. No wonder I used to get into a muddle about thermodynamics.
Ooh – that’s Flanders & Swann
You beat me to it, Richard.
and me.
Damn, must be quicker.
Talking of experiments with coffee:
In my first year undergrad physiology lab we did an experiment using the class as subjects.
Four Groups:
1. Drank 500 ml of water every 15 mins for 2 hours.
2. Drank 500 ml of black coffee every 15 mins for 2 hours.
3. Drank nothing for 2 hours.
4. Drank as much of 500 ml of salt water as they could stomach without vomiting every 15 mins for 2 hours.
We measured the amount of urine produced by the subjects (us) over the 3 hour lab.
It was a bonding experience more than anything.
Well, Chris? What was he result?
I want to know how he got ethical approval for that.
Eight pints of coffee? I don’t drink that in a week.
Well, OK, maybe a very bad week, but still.
“Coffee gets cold”
I would guess that, at any given moment, only a fraction of one percent of the world’s coffee exists in its heated and hydrated state. The vast majority remains in powder/bean form, and has little interest in getting cold. Of the coffee that is introduced to hot water, only a small fraction will be neglected for sufficient time to go cold.
So, coffee does get cold, but only in statistically insignificant proportions.
In your face, entropy.
Matt – what about all that coffee that is shipped from tropical countries, where it is grown, to Europe and North America, eh? I reckon that has a cooling effect.
Cools, yes. But the original statement is ‘coffee gets cold’. It’s subjective, but I wouldn’t consider a drop of a few degrees as ‘getting cold’.
Perhaps you should re-read the original paper Matt? It’s quite apparent that the researchers studied ‘hot’ coffee.
My News and Views article may have been incomplete: I blame space restrictions imposed by the Editrix.
“Ooh – that’s Flanders & Swann”
I’m an easy target: my knowledge of British culture starts in 1997. Mom must have got it off PBS.
Oh, the editrix gets slagged off over here in her supposed absence, does she? Ha!
Well, if it does get cold at least you can warm it up in the microwave. Unlike tea. (Actually, since having children, I have discovered that you can in fact warm up tea in the microwave, heaven forbid.)
Ew. It’s not the warming of tea in the microwave that bugs me, it’s the making of tea in the microwave.
You know: cold water, bag, nuke. shudder. It’s Boston Harbour all over again.
(if tea in the pot gets cold – i.e. there is no milk in it – add ice and lemon for a refreshing drink)
Excuse me: that’s Boston Harbor to you.
Mmmmm…. superheated water
Yum!
Here Jenny, have a spare ‘u’.
Is the cathedral in Boston, Ma. called the Boston Stmp?
No, that’s Boston Lincs, as you well know. Near Boston is a hamlet called Bunker’s Hill, and beyond that, en even smaller one called … New York.
Henry, the mis-spelling was deliberate. I wasn’t aware that there was a New York so close. Does it have any apple orchards?
Boston Harbour (Mass) and tea incident were pre Noah Webster and his attempts to rationalise English spelling rules: so do the u’s have it?
No, but the ‘z’s do. “Rationalize”, please (the ’s’ is French. Check the OED).