MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Thermodynamics of Materials

3.00 Fall 2000

W. Craig Carter

Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

77 Massachusetts Ave.

Cambridge, MA 02139

Problem Set 1: Due Fri. Sept. 15, Before 5PM in 13-5026

Exercise 1.1

Bad News

: All 50 members of the 3.00 class have been sentenced to six months hard labor at the Incredibly Heinous-Type Felonies Prison.

Good News

: It's catered!

The Labor

: To wind up wind-up-springy toys for the over-privileged undergraduates at Harbored University who are so endlessly amused by watching them. Their appetites for mindless amusements are insatiable!

The Facts

: You and your fellow prisoners get exactly $C$ Calories (1 Calorie = 1 kilocalorie) per day. Each wind-up springy toy stores exactly $W$ kilocalories after winding.

Your Quest

: Construct a model for the combined mass (or weight) of you and your 49 cohorts as a function of time. State your assumptions and carefully define any quantities that you need to introduce (such as rate of production of springy toys, or average weight gain per calorie consumed by a couch potato). Also, consider the following question: 1) should the combined mass depend only the rate of production of springy toys and $C$?