Ice Melting Lab

I didn't think a proper handout was necessary for this short demonstration, but I'll write a little something to help with your writeup over the weekend. Yours shouldn't be longer than a page or so.

In the Ice Melting demo we are concerned with two things. 1. the way in which heat is transferred to other materials. 2. which materials conduct heat efficiently. The answer to the first question is the zeroth law of thermodynamics. That's not very helpful, but I'll put down a definition according to my text book, "Every body" (not everybody, though that is also true) "has a property called temperature. When two bodies are in thermal equilibrium, their temperatures are equal. And vice versa." Said otherwise, so long as two bodies in a closed system have different temperatures, there will be a transfer of heat i. e. they will not be in thermal equilibrium. A third way of saying it: When  enough heat is transferred so that two bodies, which are in contact, are the same temperature they are considered to be in thermal equilibrium. Until thermal equilibrium is reached they will transfer heat betwixt themselves.

Whew, got it? If not there is a comment section for you to ask me something, or wait till class on Monday.

The second part is simpler I think. In the second part we are simply measuring which kinds of materials of more capable of transferring heat quickly from one place to another. A material which 'conducts' heat well, like our metal plate, is able equalize temperatures quickly, whereas a poor conductor, like the Styrofoam, absorbs the cold of the ice only on one small part of it. 

Put the two parts together and you have something like this: 1. Two bodies in contact with each other will transfer heat until their temperatures are the same. 2. Some materials transfer heat quicker than others. 3. Therefore when bodies of two different temperatures are in contact with each other, bodies that are able to quickly transfer heat i. e. conductors, will manage to gain thermal equilibrium faster than poor conductors.

I hope this helps. See you all soon.