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From: reid@Glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid)
Newsgroups: net.cooks
Subject: Re: Why boil cold water
Message-ID: <7542@Glacier.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 16-May-85 23:54:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: Glacier.7542
Posted: Thu May 16 23:54:31 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 19-May-85 06:15:03 EDT
References: <707@dedalus.UUCP> <7285@Glacier.ARPA> <580@mnetor.UUCP>
Organization: Stanford University, Computer Systems Lab
Lines: 24

> 	I am amazed that someone actually wasted time doing this.
>    ...
> 	Newton's law of cooling describes this well. Does anyone
> 	I don't mean to be insulting to anyone, but really!
> 
> Cheers,		Fred Williams

I knew what the result would be, of course, but there is so little hard data
flying around the network that it seemed to me that some certified truth
would be a refreshing change. Remember the situation in European science in
the 16th century, when it was considered unscholarly to do experiments,
because everyone "knew" what the answers would be? Then Gallileo (allegedly)
went and dropped a cannonball and a cork from the tower of Pisa, in
spite of the advice of his peers that "I was amazed that someone actually
wasted time doing this."

There are plenty of situations in the kitchen where the actual science
involved is so subtle, and so different from the laboratory, that instincts
and college-learned chemical "truth" do not always apply. For this reason
I am a great believer in trying things to see what will happen, even when I
am certain that I know what will happen.
-- 
	Brian Reid	decwrl!glacier!reid
	Stanford	reid@SU-Glacier.ARPA