spoonful vs pot

[keannu]

Heat and temperature are two quantities that can be easily confused. Imagine cooking a very large pot of
chicken soup on the stove. Let’s suppose you heat the soup until it is 95℃, quite hot. ( ① ) You grab a spoon
and take out a spoonful of soup to taste. ( ② ) As you remove the spoonful of soup from the pot, it has the
same temperature as the larger sample. ( ③ ) Unfortunately, as you bring the soup towards your mouth to taste it, the spoon slips from your hand, pouring its contents on your bare foot. ( The spoonful of 95℃ soup hitting your foot hurts, but not as badly as it would if you accidentally spilled the entire pot of 95℃ soup on your foot. ) If both the spoonful and the pot full of soup have the same temperature, why would the larger sample cause more damage if it came in contact with your skin? ( ⑤ ) The answer to the question lies in the difference between temperature and heat.
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Does "spoonful" represent "heat" while "pot", "temperature"? Or the other way around?

 

[MikeNewYork]

The other way around.

 

[Barb_D]

Neither!
They are at the same temperature.
The spoonful is a small amount of heat and the pot is a large amount of heat.

 

[MikeNewYork]

They have the same initial temperature. But the temperature of a very small amount of hot liquid will begin to decline quickly with contact with ambient air and contact with tissue. The temperature of the pot liquid will decline much slower.

 

[GoesStation]

The text is making the point that, although the spoonful and the pot-full are at the same temperature, the pot-full contains more heat.

If you're familiar with electricity, temperature is analogous to voltage while heat is like power, which is measured in watts.

 

[SoothingDave]

A spoonful of soup will transfer less heat to your foot than then entire pot will.

 

[tzfujimino]

I found this:

http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_classroom/light_lessons/thermal/differ.html

I remembered physics classes I had when I was a student.

 

[kilroy65]

It all comes down to pain in the end.

 

[GoesStation]

The difference between heat and temperature is the simple explanation for the seemingly miraculous firewalk. People make a twenty-foot-long walkway covered with red-hot, burning charcoal. After suitable preparation, they are able to walk the whole length of it, barefoot, without burning themselves.

The secret is that, although the coals are at a high temperature, they're not very dense and therefore don't contain a lot of heat. As long as you walk quickly, your feet only touch the hot coals very briefly with each step. The heat can't transfer quickly enough to burn you.

I have a feeling that accomplished firewalkers use only very soft wood to make the charcoal.