Try it on paper first. A hint, the key idea and the worked solution are here when you need them.
A well-insulated vessel, whose own heat capacity can be ignored, holds of ice and of water, both at . An iron ball of mass , at , is dropped in, and the contents are stirred until nothing more changes. Then a second, identical ball at is dropped in, and so on. The specific heat of iron is and of water , and the latent heat of fusion of ice is . Assume that no water boils away and no heat is lost.
Have you tried it?
Work it out on paper first. It is fine to get stuck or make a mistake: that is how we learn. When you are ready, go through the solution one step at a time, and check each step against your own.
Plan. Track the heat. Each ball gives out heat as it cools; the ice takes latent heat to melt; then the water and the balls already in warm up together.
Step 1. The first ball (a). Cooling to , it gives out . Melting all the ice would need , which is more. So only part of the ice melts:
and everything is at , with of ice left.
Step 2. The second ball (b). Melting the rest of the ice needs . After that, of water (heat capacity ) and the first ball () warm to the final temperature :
Step 3. More balls (c). Since energy is just shared out, the result after balls is the same as dropping all in together:
This gives for and for . So the water first passes with the ball number .
Answer: (a) . (b) . (c) balls; .
Check. Drop the first two balls in together: gives the same as Step 2. Each new ball raises the temperature by less than the one before, because there is more and more to warm.
Watch out. Do not let the first ball cool below or the water go above it while ice is still there. Ice and water together stay at until the last of the ice has melted.
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