The Newton's law of cooling reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Jul-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Newton's law of cooling

Newton's law of cooling states that the rate of heat loss is proportional to the difference in temperatures between the body and its surroundings. Consequently, cooling is an instance of exponential decay. This is an approximation, but a useful one. In particular, since most physical laws can be linearised, Newton's law can be looked upon as a simplification, with empirically determined constants, of more complex laws.

For example, simplified climate models may use Newtonian cooling instead of a full (and expensive) radiation code to maintain atmospheric temperatures.

See also

Law of heat conduction

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