Newton’s Law of Cooling and the Size of Sifrhippus sandrae, the Earliest Horse, During the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum

• Scott Lee ^[1]
  1. [1] University of Toledo

     University of Toledo

     City of Toledo, Estados Unidos

     
• Localización: The Physics Teacher, ISSN 0031-921X, Vol. 62, Nº. 9, 2024, págs. 766-767
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
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• Resumen

  • Newton’s law of cooling is a mainstay of introductory physics courses and is usually discussed in the context of heat loss through the walls of a building during winter. These courses typically have about 150 students who are majors in physics, chemistry, life sciences, and pre-pharmacy. Here we present a fascinating application of this law to the earliest horse, the tiny (∼5 kg) Sifrhippus sandrae (see Fig. 1), whose fossilized remains first appear in deposits about 56 million years old