In a room there are two completely identical metal balls. One is lying on a table and the other is hanging on a cable attached to the ceiling. At the same moment, 1 Joule of heat energy is applied to each of them. Immediately after that, the balls are perfectly insulated, such that absolutely no heat transfer is possible.
Which one is the coldest?

Assuming the balls are at equilibrium with their surroundings (i.e. the ball on the table isn't losing heat to the table WHILE the 1 Joule of heat is being applied), then both balls will contain an identical amount of heat energy.  However, since the balls are perfectly insulated, there is no way to measure their temperatures to see which is "coldest".  Trick question.

Posted by Bryan on 2005-04-05 21:44:42