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alshaymah
Jun 4, 2007, 04:37 AM
When you pour hot liquid into a ceramic mug or Styroform cup, the liquid in the ceramic cup quicly becomes a lot cooler than that in the Styroform. Why this happen?

I think it is depends on the ceramic properties.

Capuchin
Jun 4, 2007, 04:53 AM
It's all to do with thermal conductivity:

Polystyrene ~0.06 W/(m·K)
Ceramic ~15 W/(m·K)

Can you use these to explain the difference you observe?

alshaymah
Jun 4, 2007, 06:00 AM
I think the ceramic has low thermal conductivity that don't affected with the temperature :confused:

I loses teperature quicly.
:confused:

Capuchin
Jun 4, 2007, 09:20 AM
No, read the numbers again, ceramic has a HIUGH thermal conductivity

This means that heat moves from the hot inside of the mug to the cold outside surface more quickly, where it can heat up the air around it.

Polystyrene has a lowe thermal conductivity and so this process is much slower. So heat isn't lost so fast.