Sorry to bother everyone but I am not very gud at physics. If u were makin a cup ov tea an da fone rang would you put da milk in b4 u answered da fone or when u got back to make sure da tea was hottest. thanks 4 reading everyone everyone xxx
Wildwood:
The diagram in that link might be a little 'idealised' but it's basically consistent with the one that I drew, from the results of an experiment, in my 1st Year ( = current 'Year 7') science lessons all those years ago. Further, it's consistent with the ones drawn by the youngsters I used to teach physics to (after they'd conducted an appropriate experiment) before I decided that teaching maths was a great deal easier than teaching physics! ;-)
The main principal at use here is that the speed at which the liquid cools is faster the bigger the temperature difference between the liquid and the surroundings..
So a liquid at 80 degrees above room temperature STARTS cooling down twice as fast as one at 40 degrees above. Of course the speed of cooling gets less as the temperature drops, that's why the curves are less steep later.
The other assumption made in the drawing of those curves is that the same amount of milk has been added in each case.
You don't need cooling curves or anything other than basic physics. As vascop says, the rate at which a body loses heat is proportional to the temperature difference between that body and its surroundings. Therefore the hot tea, left on its own, will lose more units of heat than will the milky tea in the same time. So put the milk in before answering the phone.
Don't want to be rude but is your strange use of the language an affectation or due to a difficulty in using it?