Use Newton’s Law of Cooling
Exponential decay can also be applied to temperature. When a hot object is left in surrounding air that is at a lower temperature, the object’s temperature will decrease exponentially, leveling off as it approaches the surrounding air temperature. On a graph of the temperature function, the leveling off will correspond to a horizontal asymptote at the temperature of the surrounding air. Unless the room temperature is zero, this will correspond to a vertical shift of the generic exponential decay function. This translation leads to Newton’s Law of Cooling, the scientific formula for temperature as a function of time as an object’s temperature is equalized with the ambient temperature
This formula is derived as follows:
A General Note: Newton’s Law of Cooling
The temperature of an object, T, in surrounding air with temperature [latex]{T}_{s}[/latex] will behave according to the formula
- t is time
- A is the difference between the initial temperature of the object and the surroundings
- k is a constant, the continuous rate of cooling of the object
How To: Given a set of conditions, apply Newton’s Law of Cooling.
- Set [latex]{T}_{s}[/latex] equal to the y-coordinate of the horizontal asymptote (usually the ambient temperature).
- Substitute the given values into the continuous growth formula [latex]T\left(t\right)=A{e}^{k}{}^{t}+{T}_{s}[/latex] to find the parameters A and k.
- Substitute in the desired time to find the temperature or the desired temperature to find the time.
Example 4: Using Newton’s Law of Cooling
A cheesecake is taken out of the oven with an ideal internal temperature of [latex]165^\circ\text{F}[/latex], and is placed into a [latex]35^\circ\text{F}[/latex] refrigerator. After 10 minutes, the cheesecake has cooled to [latex]150^\circ\text{F}[/latex]. If we must wait until the cheesecake has cooled to [latex]70^\circ\text{F}[/latex] before we eat it, how long will we have to wait?
Solution
Because the surrounding air temperature in the refrigerator is 35 degrees, the cheesecake’s temperature will decay exponentially toward 35, following the equation
We know the initial temperature was 165, so [latex]T\left(0\right)=165[/latex].
We were given another data point, [latex]T\left(10\right)=150[/latex], which we can use to solve for k.
This gives us the equation for the cooling of the cheesecake: [latex]T\left(t\right)=130{e}^{-0.0123t}+35[/latex].
Now we can solve for the time it will take for the temperature to cool to 70 degrees.
It will take about 107 minutes, or one hour and 47 minutes, for the cheesecake to cool to [latex]70^\circ\text{F}[/latex].
Try It 4
A pitcher of water at 40 degrees Fahrenheit is placed into a 70 degree room. One hour later, the temperature has risen to 45 degrees. How long will it take for the temperature to rise to 60 degrees?
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- Precalculus. Provided by: OpenStax Authored by: Jay Abramson, et al.. Located at: https://openstax.org/books/precalculus/pages/1-introduction-to-functions. License: CC BY: Attribution. License terms: Download For Free at : http://cnx.org/contents/[email protected]..