Question

When hot water is mixed with cold water, the mixture attains an intermediate temperature because:
(A) Heat flows from body at higher temperature to body at lower temperature.
(B) the two fluids mix uniformly speeding up the heat transfer process if cold water is poured over hot water
(C) Both A and B
(D) neither A nor B

Answer 1

Hint:The information about the effects of heat transfer and variable property of the matter like temperature can be found in the study related to thermodynamics.

Complete Step by Step Answer:
The thermodynamic study gives information about the heat transfer and the effects of the various properties like temperature on the surroundings. The second law of thermodynamics introduced in the study when the direction of the heat transfer needs to be determined as well as the quality of the heat energy because the first law fails to give the information about the heat flow direction and many other useful information related to the heat transfer.

The heat always flows from the body at a higher temperature towards the body at a lower temperature. So, when hot water is mixed with cold water, the mixture attains an intermediate temperature because heat flows from hot water to cold water and tries to decrease the temperature gradient between the hot and cold water. So the flow of heat continuously takes place between these to water until the temperature difference or temperature gradient becomes zero. When the temperature difference becomes zero, the mixture attains a stable temperature that cannot vary rapidly. Therefore, the option (A) is correct that heat flows from body at higher temperature to body at lower temperature.

Note:When the mixing of two different temperature liquids occurs, the thermodynamics equilibrium condition in which the temperature of the mixture becomes stable takes place due to the heat transfer between two liquids.