Thermal Dynamics question for you techno science folk

[Duff-Man]

So we're all happy the answer is B?

Well, it's possible to design a container that will make option A work better (adding cooling fins in the right place etc), but any "normal" shaped pot should result in answer B.

 

[Amleto]

The "T2" in the formula you give there is the ambient temperature of the room (temperature of the smaller pot). Since I'm dealing with T* (the difference from ambient), your "T2" has T* = zero, and our initial condition formulae are equivalent. Note that my "T_h" is also a temperature differential from ambient...

In this case, we're only interested in temperature change from ambient. Of course, if the ambient temperature were to change with time, things would become a little more complex, and the thermodynamics of the smaller pot would come into play (though this would only work to further reinforce that the "mix at the end" configuration decays faster, as the increased surface area of the small pot would enforce this)

in that case, "solving we get,..." the T1, T2 should be T-stars I think.

 

[Duff-Man]

in that case, "solving we get,..." the Ts should be T-stars I think.

Ah - yes, they should definitely be starred

Actually, I do refer to them as T1* and T2* later in the text, but I forgot to ad the *s in the equations


edit: Updated the formulae (since I'm a bit anally retentive about math...).