Question

during a scientific experiment the temperature of a container decreased by 35.7° C at a constant rate over 8 1/2 hours. What value represents the change in temps of the container each hour

Answer 1

If we have a constant rate of change in time for the temperature, we can model this as a linear function.

The slope of this function is constant and is equal to the rate of change.

We can write the slope as:

$m=\frac{\Delta T}{\Delta t}=\frac{-35.7\text{ \degree{}C}}{8.5\text{ hours}}=4.2\text{ \degree{}C/hour}$

The slope is equal to the variation in the temperature divided by the time interval for that variation.

Then, we can conclude that the change in temperature is -4.2