question archive Newton's Law of Cooling is often used by coroners and detectives to estimate the time of death of someone who has died from exposure to the environment
Newton's Law of Cooling is often used by coroners and detectives to estimate the time of death of someone who has died from exposure to the environment
Subject:Earth SciencePrice: Bought3
Newton's Law of Cooling is often used by coroners and detectives to estimate the time of death of someone who has died from exposure to the environment. This law allows one to estimate the heat loss when exposed to the environment. Let's set up the equation: (Note: this equation does not consider the impact of the wind!)
t = time
T(t) = temperature at time of discovery
Te = Temperature of the environment (in °F)
T0 = Starting temperature of the object (i.e., normal body temperature)
k = -0.011 per minute
Imagine that a man in the Chicago suburbs went outside to shovel his driveway after the Feb 10, 2018, snowstorm and had a heart attack while shoveling. When the police discovered the body later that day at 5PM, his body temperature had dropped from 98.6°F to 40°F. The environmental air temperature was 9°F. What time did he die from the heart attack?
