Oh, Dearest Mother, Sweetest Virgin of Altagracia, our Patroness. You are our Advocate and to you we recommend our needs. You are our Teacher and like disciples we come to learn from the example of your holy life. You are our Mother, and like children, we come to offer you all of the love of our hearts. Receive, dearest Mother, our offerings and listen attentively to our supplications. Amen.



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Subject Topic: teach calculus with a cup of coffee? Post ReplyPost New Topic
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Leonie
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Posted: Aug 09 2005 at 9:22pm | IP Logged Quote Leonie
Thought this was interesting - we are going to experiment with this activity this week.

Demonstration 6   Exponential decay and hot cups of coffee.



Variation 1 (Thanks to Sean Cleary): You need a coffee pot for this to
get some water boiling hot. Add some hot cocoa mix, or tea. State that
experiment has shown that hot cocoa at above 135 degrees burns your
tongue. Use a thermometer to measure the temperature - say you get 170.
A meat thermometer works well wtih this. Alway prepare the calculations
ahead of time, as you won't have much time to do this in class. After a
minute passes, remeasure it and get, say, 155. Then calculate how long
it will take to reach 115. When the time arrives, gulp down a lot of
the hot liquid to show your faith in your calculation. If you have
miscalculated, hold your composure as you do not want to shake your
students' confidence in calculus.

Variation 2: Bring in or boil up a hot cup of black coffee in one cup
and a small amount of cold milk in another. Ask - "If I will be serving
the coffee in five minutes and want it to be as hot as possible, should
I mix the milk and coffee together now or just before I drink them?".
Try it both ways and see.

taken from
http://www.math.ucdavis.edu/~hass/Calculus/calcdemos/node2.h tml

Leonie in Sydney
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