FURTHER MUG DYNAMICS

"Any idea why they've taken the old mugs away?" asked Micky, peering into the open empty cupboard.

Here we go, I thought. I shrugged my shoulders.

"New logo I guess. Out with the old."

"Hmm. But there's no cups left. And anyway, these new ones are rubbish.*"

I raised both eyebrows. Perhaps another chance to go on about my 29% heat loss theory.

"Yeah, they have a greater surface area," I said, smugly, "And the material is thinner, so even though they hold more water..."

"...they get cold quick," interrupted Micky.

"Exactly," I replied. I'm easily impressed.

There's a lot of physics around the office. What I should really do is use a cooking thermometer with both mugs full of boiling water. I guess this is how science works: you come up with a hypothesis:

"I believe that the new mugs are less efficient than the old mugs."

Then you design a controlled experiment to disprove it.

Stopwatch, thermometer, old mug, new mug, kettle, notepad.

Then you reach a conclusion based on your data and you tell everyone you know that you were right... or wrong.

Actually, it's more exciting if you're wrong because that gives you an opportunity to develop what you think is going on and come up with a new theory.

Micky seemed happier that his empirical evidence was right all along and kept searching the cupboards for a decent mug.

In the spirit of scientific endeavour (and my new-found love of Google Maps) I plotted the route which involved the most amount of shade between home and the office. There's rather a lot of shady spots going the long way round. I rounded buildings, walked under the dappled sunlight and skulked through the shadows. I must have looked a bit strange.

You have to make the most of these lovely summer lunchbreaks.

When I worked in Hungerford, there were all kinds of places to explore of a lunchtime - marshes and funny shops and a swing bridge, a beautiful old church and, rusting away in the middle of a field like something out of someone's nightmares, a couple of gigantic statues of Morecambe and Wise in full Bring Me Sunshine pose.

I got back to the office and flicked on the big fan. I reckon it spins at well over 1,000 revolutions per minute. Think of all that lovely angular momentum, pushing static air towards my desk and oscillating my post-it notes. Oh, and cooling my tea down.

There's a lot of physics around the office.









*He used a different word.