I'm troubled.... even my rudimentary knowledge of thermodynamics is enough to clearly indicate that something strange is going on.
(I assume you are familiar with the basic story - but heres a refresher of the bit that troubles me):
"... but the big bowl of porridge was too hot...
... but the medium sized bowl of porridge was too cold..
...and the small bowl of porridge was just right so she ate it all up..."
Now lets assume that all the porridge was cooked together in one pot (as it usualy is) and served at the same time. It would have been at the same temperature when served (which was too hot - hence the bears deciding to take a walk whilst it cooled).
Now it wont surprise anyone to hear that the largest bowl retained its heat the best what with it having the smallest surface area/volume ratio, but how could the medium sized bowl cool down the quickest?
There are 2 likely explanations:
1) The bowls were made of different materials - with the medium bowl conducting heat away from the porridge more efficiently than the small bowl (perhaps the small bowl was a traditional wooden bowl but the medium one was some new-fangled hyperconducting metal bowl? )
2) The medium bowl was in fact broken a long time ago and mummy bear had resorted to serving her porridge on a flat dinner plate (thus dramatically increasing the exposed surface area and cooling the porridge very quickly).
Either way - the illustrations in the book I'm reading my daughter are extremely misleading - they clearly show three similarly shaped wooden bowls that appear to vary only in dimensions!! How can we as parents be expected to teach out kids sound principles of physics when we bombard them with confusing mis-information the whole time?
..or have I missed something - is there a perfectly simple explanation?
(I assume you are familiar with the basic story - but heres a refresher of the bit that troubles me):
"... but the big bowl of porridge was too hot...
... but the medium sized bowl of porridge was too cold..
...and the small bowl of porridge was just right so she ate it all up..."
Now lets assume that all the porridge was cooked together in one pot (as it usualy is) and served at the same time. It would have been at the same temperature when served (which was too hot - hence the bears deciding to take a walk whilst it cooled).
Now it wont surprise anyone to hear that the largest bowl retained its heat the best what with it having the smallest surface area/volume ratio, but how could the medium sized bowl cool down the quickest?
There are 2 likely explanations:
1) The bowls were made of different materials - with the medium bowl conducting heat away from the porridge more efficiently than the small bowl (perhaps the small bowl was a traditional wooden bowl but the medium one was some new-fangled hyperconducting metal bowl? )
2) The medium bowl was in fact broken a long time ago and mummy bear had resorted to serving her porridge on a flat dinner plate (thus dramatically increasing the exposed surface area and cooling the porridge very quickly).
Either way - the illustrations in the book I'm reading my daughter are extremely misleading - they clearly show three similarly shaped wooden bowls that appear to vary only in dimensions!! How can we as parents be expected to teach out kids sound principles of physics when we bombard them with confusing mis-information the whole time?
..or have I missed something - is there a perfectly simple explanation?