This event is preceded by the hot drink tongue burn under the circumstances that the cup is filled to the brim. The drinking agent is limited to inefficient cooling strategies such as blowing and careful sipping. The exponential ice-cube effect goes into play when the agent is able to free enough volume in the drinking vessel to add one ice cube, and then subsequently increase drinking speed to free additional volume to add ice cubes. The count of connected ice cubes for one addition reflects the level of risk of the drinking agent. The result is an exponential decrease in hot drink temperature as one is able to drink more and continue trading volume for cubes. The cooling effort is successful if the last ice cube melts when the temperate is “just right.” The effort has failed if too many cubes were added at a detriment to the quality or temperature of the drink. The agent is encouraged to be ready with supplementary materials to mitigate risk, including but not limited to, additional cubes, a spoon to remove excess cubes, and a robot vacuum for additional support for cleaning up spilled cocoa powder.
Suggested Citation:
Sochat, Vanessa. "Exponential Ice Cube Cooling." @vsoch (blog), 22 Feb 2018, https://vsoch.github.io/2018/ice-cubes/ (accessed 16 Apr 24).