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Why Mama Bear's Porridge Is Too Cold

thusspakezuska | May 5, 2009

Over at Uncertain Principles, Chad frets about committing physics heresy via a reading of Goldilocks and the Three Bears to his young offspring. The story may convey a useful moral message, but it's way off base on the physics. After all, the Papa Bear, being the biggest, presumably has the largest bowl of porridge. Here, the story fits what we know about thermodynamics, as the largest bowl should take the longest time to cool, and thus should be the hottest at any time before the porridge bowls reach thermal equilibrium with their environment. The description provided of the other two bowls…