Thermodynamics B/C

[Neruos73]

Oof I hope they don't do calculus though but thanks for the heads up!

[MIScioly1]

Oof I hope they don't do calculus though but thanks for the heads up!

Calculus is strongly discouraged in SciOly and I too would never require it for a test. Though, underlying knowledge is certainly always helpful.

[Alex-RCHS]

Bold prediction: Thermo is going to center around insulating ice this year, not hot water.

(Yeah I know this probably isn't true but wouldn't it be cool?) Pun intended!

[TheChiScientist]

Bold prediction: Thermo is going to center around insulating ice this year, not hot water.

(Yeah I know this probably isn't true but wouldn't it be cool?) Pun intended!

That's actually smart! More ice retention would be a great way to test the build... But then again there would be issues with running the event...

[UTF-8 U+6211 U+662F]

Bold prediction: Thermo is going to center around insulating ice this year, not hot water.

(Yeah I know this probably isn't true but wouldn't it be cool?) Pun intended!

One issue might be slicing the ice so that it fits in the beaker though and has the perfect volume though. (If you use ice water, that'd work, but you wouldnt be able to adjust the temperature.)

[JoeyC]

Bold prediction: Thermo is going to center around insulating ice this year, not hot water.

(Yeah I know this probably isn't true but wouldn't it be cool?) Pun intended!

Yay!!! No more scalded fingers! (Remembers all the many, many, MANY, misrun regular thermo events last year)
Wait a second.................

[TheChiScientist]

Bold prediction: Thermo is going to center around insulating ice this year, not hot water.

(Yeah I know this probably isn't true but wouldn't it be cool?) Pun intended!

Yay!!! No more scalded fingers! (Remembers all the many, many, MANY, misrun regular thermo events last year)
Wait a second.................

Errr. You do know that ice can scald your fingers too right? (It's called ice burn)
Although this seems highly unlikely to occur as its to difficult to run.

[pikachu4919]

Bold prediction: Thermo is going to center around insulating ice this year, not hot water.

(Yeah I know this probably isn't true but wouldn't it be cool?) Pun intended!

Yay!!! No more scalded fingers! (Remembers all the many, many, MANY, misrun regular thermo events last year)
Wait a second.................

Errr. You do know that ice can scald your fingers too right? (It's called ice burn)
Although this seems highly unlikely to occur as its to difficult to run.

Wouldn't that technically be frostbite? And you can get that kind of burn much quicker from dry ice than from normal ice.

Also, yeah, ice would be tons harder than hot water for this event. I mean, you could theoretically put a bunch of ice in the device and measure weight/mass of ice before and weight/mass of ice after, but think about it: ice is constantly melting, and since it's doing that, it's hard to get a good read on the mass. Also when ice melts, not only does it undergo a temperature change, it also undergoes a phase change, and there's a separate kind of enthalpy called latent heat, specifically heat of fusion, that must also be accounted for with that and is not measurable by thermometer because of the fact that it is not associated with temperature (in which that kind of enthalpy is called sensible heat). Plus, you lose time and thus more ice from making sure that you measure it properly, since you have to tare scales according to your measuring containers since you're obv not going to put the ice directly on the scale. I mean, conservation of mass still applies, but the density of ice < density of water, plus there are volume differences associated with it, also, ice doesn't come in the same forms from different sources (like for example, just like how your refrigerator may have different dispensing settings for "cubed" and "crushed" ice, you can buy nice cubed ice from the store and that would be different from the most likely much smaller "crushed" ice chunks you'd normally see in your chemistry facility coolers), and that's something that could inconsistently affect its behavior within your device (I mean you could develop more data charts to account for that but like....that's quite a bit more trouble) ... the list of potential issues you could encounter with using ice to measure the device's performance could go on and on and on, that list would probably be longer than a list of potential issues with using hot water instead. There are just so many factors to consider that it would be possibly a logistical nightmare for the supervisor, and also for the rule committee to work out all sorts of scenarios in which things could go wrong (right chalker?).