Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-year-2-of-the-earth-sciences-geology-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2023/paper-1/10/e/solution

After bath cooling followed by insulated equilibration, the remaining mean temperature is conserved: integrating the insulated heat equation gives
For constant density, specific heat capacity and cross-section, this is conservation of energy. Its Fourier cosine series has a constant mode equal to the initial integral average; every nonconstant mode decays. Therefore the eventual uniform temperature is
For each mode with an odd integer index in part (c), . Integrating the bath-cooled series yields
For , uniform convergence justifies termwise integration; the result also follows by dominated convergence of the summable positive coefficients. As a check, gives for zero bath time, and as . More bath time strictly lowers the retained average temperature when and .

New to topics? Read the docs here!