Show thermal units and ice cream we have no particular spite against ice cream vendors but simply quote the following from the british engineer as an item of curious interest A boy eats 2 ounces of ice cream now let us see what the approximate thermodynamic equivalent of the work he is forcing upon his stomach amounts to first we will assume that it takes him five minutes to eat the icy mixture in melting the ice he will require 18 thermal units to reduce it to water and 7 more or a total of 25 british thermal units to raise alie temperature of the ice water to that of the stomach when in a natural healthy state taking the mechanical equivalent as toot pounds it is really a fraction over the total is equal to foot pounds thus it may be seen that if the boy weighs pounds he lias called upon his stomach to do as much heat work as would with a machine having unit efficiency raise him feet high or a rate of heat extraction equal to nearly an eighth of a horse power |