Newton’s Law of Cooling
Alex Patney, Michael Cole, Kento Cavallo
Our project was about Newton’s Law of Cooling. Newton’s Law of Cooling is a formula
invented by Sir Isaac Newton in 1701. It is a formula used for calculating the temperature of a
specific object depending on the surrounding temperature, and other factors. The non-differential
equation formula is T(t) = (To-Ts)e^-kt, where T(t) is the temperature at a certain time, t is time,
To is the temperature of the object at the beginning, and Ts is the temperature of the surrounding
area. And e being euler’s numbers, and k is a constant that differs from equation to equation
because it depends on time and the temperature after a certain time. In the formula, euler’s
number is used as the base of an exponential equation. This is because the formula is actually an
exponential decay formula. This directly ties into the coursework we did in Precalculus as in
Trimester 3 we learned all about exponents and logarithmic equations. In the law of cooling
formula e is used as a base for the equation, with t being the variable, and k a constant. There is
also a negative sign in the exponent, meaning that if you analyzed the graph of the equation you
would see it levels out at y = Ts. This makes fundamental sense as if you negativize the variable
in the exponent, it reflects the graph over the x axis leveling out at whenever y = Ts. This also
makes sense as when the temperature of the surrounding area is a certain degree, an object that is
hotter than that degree, the lowest temperature it will ever get is the same temperature of the
area, there is no way it can go below that temperature. For the project there would be 3 things we
would have to do, the google sheets, the presentation, and the analysis. We all first came up with
how we would solve this with any input and after a plan was created and how we would put this
into google sheets, then Alex and Kento worked on the google sheets, chunking the formula, and
coding the formula into sheets. Mikey did the presentation and speaker notes, and Alex and
Mikey worked on the analysis. The google sheets were arguably the hardest part. For the first
equation we wanted to solve for the time, t, it takes for an object to reach a certain temperature,
T(t). So first we had to solve for the k variable which means we needed to add two other inputs,
the time at a certain point on the timeline, that we called T0 and the temperature at the point in
time which we called T(T0). With these two new inputs we were first able to solve for the k
variable. We did this using methods we learned in precalculus such as logarithms to remove
exponents, and other algebraic methods. With this k variable, and our other inputs, we were able
to use a formula that we created on the whiteboards, using similar algebraic methods that we
solved k with, to solve for t using the inputs. With this we also created 3 other equations, one for
solving for the surrounding temperature given the other variables, an equation for the
temperature of the object given the other variables, and the temperature after a certain time given
the other variables, and solving for k. Throughout this project our group only found one struggle,
when Mikey brought up the idea of multiple scenarios where you had one input but not the other.
We then decided to make google sheets and analysis for other scenarios such as finding the
surrounding temperature instead of the time till goal. This was exponentially harder than filling
in the basic sheets as we needed to truly understand the topic and the variables to be able to solve
a more difficult problem. In life not everything will have the same question and that’s why we
decided to answer all four possibilities for Newton's Law of Cooling. Thanks for reading.
Mikey, Kento, Alex
