Viewing Thread:
"A question Professer Hawking was asked..."

Just thought it would be interesting to see possible answers. I'll post the correct one fairly soon.

"You have just made a kettle of boiling water to make a cup of tea. You want the tea to cool down to drinking temerature as quick as possible. Do you put the milk in before or after the tea?

The most important thing is reasoning.

Yus, Stephen got it right away.


Hint:

It is not to do with with convection currents.


The correct answer, beautifully phrased:


Emitime wrote:
> Tea first.
>
> If you put the milk in (which I presume would be cold?), then that
> starts to warm up due to the air temperature, which means it won't
> cool the tea down as much.
>
> Where as if you put the tea in first, that'd already have started
> cooling down from the air temperature, and the milk will still be at
> it's coldest temperature as you put it in.
>
> This all of course depends on the temperature surrounding the cup.

You don't put the milk or the tea in the kettle. You put the tea, hot water and then milk into the cup. It's no good putting the milk in the cup before the hot water as it renders the tea undrinkable :)

Ineedsleep wrote:
> You don't put the milk or the tea in the kettle. You put the tea, hot
> water and then milk into the cup. It's no good putting the milk in
> the cup before the hot water as it renders the tea undrinkable :)

It's just a badly phrased question, although well spotted.

If it is a trick question, it's written really poorly.

It doesnt say anyhting about putting the milk and tea in the kettle, it says boiling water for tea.

Ive just noticed it says put the milk in before or after the tea.
If you put the milk in before the actual tea then it wouldnt disolve properly.

So is it a trick question? or just worded wrong, maybe should be saying, 'before or after the water.'

Without looking at anything I'm guessing it's milk first.

Professional coffee making people always put the milk in first.

But is that to make it taste differant or cool down quicker?

cookie monster wrote:
> If you were putting one in pretty much after the other i dont think it
> would really make a damn bit of difference.

This is my take too.

I'm sure that can't be the answer though.

Tea first.

If you put the milk in (which I presume would be cold?), then that starts to warm up due to the air temperature, which means it won't cool the tea down as much.

Where as if you put the tea in first, that'd already have started cooling down from the air temperature, and the milk will still be at it's coldest temperature as you put it in.

This all of course depends on the temperature surrounding the cup.

So, j-42, tell us the answer already!!!

Patience! Will do later, have to read some of your answers first.