On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 20:47:07 UTC, (Andy Durbin)
wrote:

: That seems to say that the volume of copper is *very* small so its
: mass would be too. Is there any useful heat exchange between a
: negligible mass of copper and .45 litres of air?

I bet the trick wouldn't work if the glass was really, really full.
You can pile a lot of water up in a meniscus.

That said, the specific heat capacities for copper and air are 380 and
1004 J/kgK, but since the densities are 896 and 1.225 kg/m^3, the
volumetric heat capacities are 340 and 1.23 kJ/Km^3, a ratio of 276:1.
In other words, filling 1% of the capacity with copper will nearly
treble the heat capacity of the, um, capacity.

Ian
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