Coffee with Cream: Brain Teaser from Braingle

Question:
You are served a hot cup of coffee and room-temperature cream at a restaurant. You want to wait a few minutes before you drink the coffee, and you want it to be as hot as possible when you drink it. Should you pour the cream in the coffee:

a) Immediately
b) Just before you drink it
c) It doesn't matter

("don't add any cream" is not an option)

HEY! DON'T JUST LOOK AT THE ANSWER! THINK ABOUT IT!

Answer:
The driving force for heat transfer is temperature difference. The coffee by itself is very hot and will therefore cool down at a fast rate. Then once the cream is added the temperature will drop even more. If the cream is added immediately, then the temperature will drop initially but will then drop at a slower rate since the coffee with cream is cooler than the coffee alone and therefore the driving force for heat transfer is less. As an added bonus, adding the cream will increase the mass of the contents of the cup. A larger mass takes longer to cool down than a smaller one at the same temperature. Therefore, the cream should be added immediately.

Notes to Book: Mortimer J. Adler: Aristotle for Everybody: Difficult Thought made Easy (1978):

• physical things: 3 dimensions: length, breadth, height; i.e., spatial dimensions, in which a body can move.



• human beings = persons: personal dimensions; i.e., directions, in which we can act as human beings: making, doing, knowing.
  
  
  • making: man, the artist or artisan: producer of goods (shoes, houses, paintings).
  
  
  • doing: man, the moral and social being; distinguish right and wrong, associate with other human beings.
  
  
  • knowing: man, the learner; acquisition of knowledge about human nature and knowledge itself.
  
  
• man is a thinker in all these dimensions, but he thinks differently in each dimension.



• Aristotle speaks about:


• maker: 'productive thinking'.


• doer: 'practical thinking'.


• knower: 'speculative' or 'theoretical' thinking.


• Heraclitus: everything changes.
  
• Parmenides (and Zeno): everything remains constant.


• Aristotle: some things change, some remain the same.



• Euclid's geometry:
  
  • definitions: points, lines, straight lines, triangles.
  
  
  • axioms: cannot bew denied; confirmation cannot be avoided; "the whole is greater than the parts", "things equal to the same thing are equal to each other".
  
  
  • postulates: assumptions that Euclid makes in order to prove the propositions that need proof "a straight line can be drawn from any point to any other point."
  
  
• Socrates was Plato's teacher, Plato was Aristotle's teacher.



• Socrates: an unexamined life is not worth living.



• Aristotle: an unplanned life is not worth examining, for an unplanned life is one in which we do not know what we are trying to do or why, and one in which we do not know where we are trying to get or how to get there. An unplanned life is also not worth living because it can not be lived well.



• A happy time is one filled with pleasures rather than pains, with satisfactions rather than dissatisfactions.



• "good" = desirable; "better" = more desirable; "best" = most desirable.



• Aristotle: these two notions -- good and desirable -- are inseparably connected; 'the good is desirable' and 'the desirable is good'.



• Moral virtue is the habit of making right choices. If the wrong choices greatly outnumber the right choices, one will steadily move in the wrong direction, away from achieving happiness instead of toward it.



• Aristotle was a great logican; he founded the science of logic.

Geometric Brain Teaser found on Aiyueh Kwan's Web Site:

If you can't solve it, please send email to dynamicplanet@yahoo.com

Hermann Hesse in 'Siddhartha' (1922): "I can think. I can wait. I can fast."

Snippets:
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Movie: The Fountainhad (1949); w/ Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal; directed by King Vidor; after the novel by Ayn Rand.
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Talk: Richard Feynman: There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom (1959). Nanotechnology. Interesting to see, how small things can get.
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Book on Tape: Richard P. Feynman: Six Easy Pieces (1994); Recordings of basic physics lectures that Feynman gave to Caltech undergrad students in 1961/1962; lectures resulted in Feynman's landmark book 'Lectures on Physics'.
~~~~~~~
Music: The Outlaws. Country Rock from the 70's. Single: 'Green Grass and High Tides'
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Music: Tadd Dameron, jazz pianist; CD with John Coltrane: Mating Call; also included in the CD Box 'John Coltrane: The Complete Prestige Recordings'
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Word: pizzicato: by means of plucking instead of bowing strings (Merriam Webster Dictionary)
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Language: Grammar: Conjugation of German verbs: Institutio Steiger (in German)
~~~~~~~

Dynamic Planet Blog
TOC: Table of Contents
June 2003

1.) Mary Oliver: Excerpt from 'In Blackwater Woods'
2.) Adrian Deckbar
3.) Louisiana Purchase
4.) Lake Pontchartrain Causeway
5.) The Atman which is Brahman