AUSTIN BODI OUMA SCT-253-040/2021 APCS

MULTIMEDIA UNIVERSITY

OF KENYA

FACULTY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS

APPLIED PHYSICS AND COMPUTER SCIENCE

SCT-253-040/2021

AUSTIN BODI OUMA

THERMAL PHYSICS LAB REPORT
AUSTIN BODI OUMA SCT-253-040/2021 APCS

EXPERIMENT 3
Aim
The aim of the experiment is to verify Newton's Law of cooling.
Introduction
A cup of coffee cooling on the counter, a cake warming in the oven, and a body found in the
chill autumn weatherare these the ingredients for a murder mystery to read by the fire or a
case for that most famous detective of natural phenomena, Sir Isaac Newton? We use a first-
order linear differential equation formulated by Newton to predict the temperatures of objects
introduced into media with known ambient temperatures. Temperature difference in any
situation results from energy flow into a system or energy flow from a system to
surroundings. The former leads to heating, whereas latter leads to cooling of an object.
Newton’s Law of Cooling states that the rate of temperature of the body is proportional to the
difference between the temperature of the body and that of the surrounding medium. This
statement leads to the classic equation of exponential decline over time which can be applied
to many phenomena in science and engineering, including the discharge of a capacitor and
the decay in radioactivity. Newton's Law of Cooling is useful for studying water heating
because it can tell us how fast the hot water in pipes cools off. A practical application is that
it can tell us how fast a water heater cools down if you turn off the breaker when you go on
vacation. In mathematic terms, the cooling rate is equal to the temperature difference between
the two objects, multiplied by a material constant. The cooling rate has units of degrees/unit-
time, thus the constant has units of 1/unit-time. From this definition of cooling rate, Newton
was able to show that temperature change follows the following mathematic rule:

d
Td     ambien 
kT T
t

t d
  kd
T TTambien t
t
d
 TT    kd
t
T  Tambien
l t  k
n T0 t
T  Tambien  T0 e kt
t
T  T0 e kt  Tambien
t

T  T0  e  k t  Tambien
AUSTIN BODI OUMA SCT-253-040/2021 APCS

With:
T = The water’s temperature at a given time, t
T0  The initial temperature difference and
Tambient  The air temperature

Apparatus
 Thermometer
 calorie meter
 stopwatch

Procedure
1. The calorie meter was filled 2/3rd with the given liquid and heated to a temperature
of 80oC. The liquid was to act as a hot body which was subjected to cooling.
2. The thermometer was inserted in to the calorimeter. When the temperature reading
reached 70oC the stopwatch was started.
3. The time readings were noted for every 5o fall of temperature up to the room
temperature. The readings were tabulated.
4. A graph was drawn with temperature θ along Y axis and time (t) along X axis, dθ/dt
was found by taking slopes to tangents drawn at various temperatures on the cooling
curve.
Calculation and analysis
Time(s) Temp(oc)
220 65
436 60
677 55
1044 50
1579 45
2196 40
3108 35

Gradient dθ/dt
AUSTIN BODI OUMA SCT-253-040/2021 APCS

70

60

50
Temparature

40

30

20

10

0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500
Time in seconds

Conclusion
Newtons law of cooling was proven.
Reference
 Maruyama, S., & Moriya, S. (2021). Newton's Law of Cooling: Follow up and
exploration. International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 164, 120544.
 O’Sullivan, C. T. (1990). Newton’s law of cooling—A critical assessment. American
Journal of Physics, 58(10), 956-960.
 Vollmer, M. (2009). Newton's law of cooling revisited. European Journal of
Physics, 30(5), 1063.
 Winterton, R. H. S. (1999). Newton's law of cooling. Contemporary Physics, 40(3),
205-212.
 Lab report