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Cold Instruments at the Recording Studio

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Cold Instruments at the Recording Studio

Find out why some cold things warm up faster than others.

Part 1: The cold-can test

Read the passage and Table 1, then answer questions 1–6.

Waiting to Tune

1Tavita Leaupepe helps out on Saturdays at Riverbend Community Studio, where local bands record their songs. One January morning, a brass band arrived with its instruments in a van that had sat outside all night. Sound engineer Mr. Osei Brandt told the players to wait before tuning, because cold brass instruments play out of tune. The players warmed their cold mouthpieces by holding them in a closed hand. "The trumpet mouthpieces warm up fast," Mr. Brandt said, "but the tuba mouthpieces take a while."

2Tavita wanted to know why some cold things warm up faster than others. With Mr. Brandt, she set up a test. She filled five identical steel cans, all the same size, with brass beads, steel beads or water. She put a lid on each can, pushed a thermometer probe into the center through a hole in the lid and cooled all five cans to 4 °C in the studio's refrigerator. Then she set them on the same shelf in the control room, which stays at 22 °C, and read each temperature every 10 minutes.

3At the start, every can was 18 °C colder than the room, and the cans were the same size, so energy from the room air began flowing into each can at about the same rate. Table 1 shows her results.

4Later that morning, Tavita tested the mouthpieces, which had all been at 4 °C when they came out of the van. A mouthpiece is a solid brass cup that the player buzzes into. A volunteer held each one in a closed hand for 1 minute or 2 minutes, and Tavita then measured its temperature with a probe. Table 2 in Part 2 shows what she found.

Table 1: Can Temperatures in the 22 °C Control Room (°C)
Can	Contents	0 min	10 min	20 min	30 min
A	300 g brass beads	4	18	21	22
B	600 g brass beads	4	15	20	21
C	300 g steel beads	4	17	21	22
D	300 g water	4	7	9	11
E	600 g water	4	6	8	9

1.

Use Table 1. Look at the first 10 minutes.

Can A warmed by °C, and Can D warmed by °C.

2.

Tavita wants to see how the type of matter affects the temperature change, with the mass kept the same. Which cans should she compare?

A. Cans D and EB. Cans A, C and DC. Cans B, C and ED. Cans A and B

3.

Use paragraph 3. Energy began flowing into Cans A and D at about the same rate, yet Can A warmed much more in the first 10 minutes. Which is the best explanation?

A. It takes much more energy to warm 300 g of water by 1 °C than to warm 300 g of brass.B. The water gave off cold that pushed back against the warm room air entering the can.C. The brass beads had more mass than the water, so they could take in more of the energy.D. The water blocked energy from getting into Can D, so the water took in almost no energy.

4.

Cans A and B hold the same kind of beads, but Can B warmed less in the first 10 minutes. Which explanation fits the data best?

A. Can B's beads were packed more tightly, so they held on to more cold from the refrigerator.B. Can B's thermometer was deeper in the beads, so it showed a colder reading by mistake.C. Can B held twice the mass, so the energy it took in was shared by more matter.D. Can B was the heavier can, so the room air reached it later than it reached Can A.

5.

Use Table 1. Can D stayed much colder than the room for the whole test, so energy kept flowing into it.

Can D warmed by °C in the first 10 minutes and by °C in all 30 minutes.

6.

Can A warmed 14 °C in the first 10 minutes but only 1 °C in the last 10 minutes. Which is the best explanation?

A. The brass beads were full of energy after 10 minutes, so they could take in hardly any more.B. As the can neared room temperature, the difference shrank, so energy flowed in more slowly.C. The control room cooled down during the test, so it had less energy to give the can.D. The steel can warmed up first and then held back energy from the brass beads inside it.

Part 2: Warming the mouthpieces

Use Table 2, Table 1 and paragraph 4 to answer questions 7–11.

Table 2: Brass Mouthpieces Held in a Closed Hand (all started at 4 °C)
Mouthpiece	Mass (g)	Held for	Temperature after (°C)
Trumpet	100	1 min	11
Trumpet	100	2 min	17
Tuba	400	1 min	7
Tuba	400	2 min	10

7.

Use Table 2. Every mouthpiece started at 4 °C.

After 1 minute in a hand, the trumpet mouthpiece had warmed by °C, and the tuba mouthpiece by °C.

8.

The tuba mouthpiece is larger, so it touches more of the hand, yet it warmed less than the trumpet mouthpiece in the same time. Which is the best explanation?

A. It was colder at the start, so it needed more time just to reach the same 4 °C.B. Its larger cup let more of the cold from the van stay trapped inside the metal.C. Its brass is a different kind of matter, so it takes in less of the energy from a hand.D. It has four times the mass, so the energy from the hand was shared by much more brass.

9.

The same trumpet mouthpiece was 11 °C after 1 minute in a hand and 17 °C after 2 minutes. Which explanation fits the data best?

A. Holding it longer let the hand transfer more energy to it, so its temperature rose more.B. After 1 minute the hand stopped giving energy, and the brass warmed itself after that.C. Holding it longer squeezed some of the cold out of the brass and into the hand.D. After 1 minute the brass changed into a kind of matter that warms more easily.

10.

Match each comparison to the one variable it tests. Use both tables.

11.

The band's singer looked at Table 1 and said, "Can D warmed so slowly because water keeps energy out, like a blanket. Hardly any energy got into the water." Do you agree? Write a claim, give evidence from Table 1 and paragraph 3, and explain your reasoning.