Abstract
The heating of simple geometric objects immersed in an isothermal bath is analysed qualitatively through Fourier's law. The approximate temperature evolution is compared with the exact solution obtained by solving the transport differential equation, the discrepancies being smaller than 20%. Our method succeeds in giving the solution as a function of the Fourier modulus so that the scale laws hold. It is shown that the time needed to homogenize temperature variations that extend over mean distances xm is approximately xm2/, where is the thermal diffusivity. This general relationship also applies to atomic diffusion. Within the approach presented there is no need to write down any differential equation. As an example, the analysis is applied to the process of boiling an egg.
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