Question

A scientist climbs to a summit, and decides to leave some hot water for the next person to do so. He rinses out an iron saucepan, uses it to melt some snow, and continues to heat until the water boils.He fills an insulating flask (made from stainless steel, so it won’t rust) to the brim with the hot water, screws the lid on very tightly, and leaves it next to the summit. Unfortunately, the flask is only found 3 months later, and is of no use to the mountaineer who finds it.Explain all the reasons why the flask and its contents are of no use to the mountaineer.

Answer 1

In this example, the scientist made sure to store the bolied water in the flask, but it was not enough for the mountaineer to find it in conditions that the scientist left it. This was because a long time passed and the hot water began to lose heat by conduction through the flask.

Conduction is a way of heat transfer that is caused by direct contact between molecules (in this case, the molecules of the hot water, and the molcules of the walls of the flask), due to the differemce in temperature (hot indside the flask, and cold outside the flask).