Let's see what your speculations were: that husband and wife were telling the truth and not some cockamamie story concocted in their lawyer's office, that because the victim wasn't wearing his contact lenses or one was broken or whatever that he therefore couldn't see the gun in the killer's hand pointed straight at him, that because the victim was sometimes known to run up to his friends and hugged them, that that must have been how he had responded to the killer and his wife that night, etc.
Those aren't speculation, those are the facts as reported via LexusNexus (which has the court transcripts).
It definitely could have been lower if the vapor escaped suddenly leaving a low-pressure area behind in the same way as a fast-moving automobile creates a low-pressure zone behind it, enabling "drafting." Certainly the surrounding air would move quickly into the low-pressure area and restore it to normal ambient atmospheric pressure but there would likely be a brief moment of lower-than-atmospheric pressure on the surface of the liquid. And in any event, the pressure on the surface of the liquid would be lower after the escape of the pent-up vapor than it was immediately before.
Hence the unfounded speculation. Drafting does not apply. There is a low pressure area behind a moving car happens because the car has pushed the air out of the way (and drafting only happens at high speed, not any speeds likely to be achieved by an old lady's arm). Since removing a lid does not push the air out of the space between the lid, drafting cannot happen (the lid would have to move through that space to create the temporary vacuum). In any case, any boiling would only last as long as the low pressure area existed, and as soon as the air pressure was "quickly" restored is would stop. So, a fraction of a second at most (though the whole guess is pretty preposterous).
Getting silly has never impressed me much as an argument, but I'm not against anyone having fun his own special way, so go for it.
That wasn't silly. That number was calculated based on the figures in the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, which lists physical constants of all inorganic compounds (such as water) and most organic compounds. The book has the pressure variances required to drop the boiling point of pure water per degree, so it was a simple subtraction of degrees and multiplication against the constant. Then I looked up what the atmospheric difference of the result (about 400 millibars) would be, and it was over 32,000'. So, the difference in pressure would have to be like suddenly being transported from sea level to the top of Mt. Everest. I also calculated what stress that pressure difference would apply over the lid of a standard 16oz coffee cup and this was nearly 40kg. So, that cup and lid would have to be able to withstand that much pressure. I told you that if you could find a coffee cup that would support that much weight, I would believe you.
The conditions you suggest are what is silly, not my conclusions based on your preposterous suggestion.
Kinda forgetting that the energy was already transferred when the vapor trapped in the cup had vaporized. After the escape of the vapor, there would be no corresponding sudden drop in the temperature of the liquid remaining in the cup from where it was already at when the maximum vaporization possible in the closed system had already occurred.
That's right. The temperature wouldn't drop because the lid was removed. The temperature drop in the liquid happens at the time the pressure buildup occurs - this is where the energy is transferred. The energy leaves the liquid and enters the air above the liquid, dropping the temperature of the liquid in proportion to the increase in pressure (assuming a perfect seal, and there is no additional energy loss). This is why I say the total energy of the system has not changed.
That's absurd on the face of it, because obviously the pressure will be lower inside the cup once the cap is off.
What's absurd is your claim. There was 1000 millibar (atmospheric pressure) above the liquid before the lid was added. The lid was placed on the cup. There would be some slight pressure buildup because of escaped heat in the form of water vapor, call it 2 or 3 millibars (though in reality it would be nowhere near that much). Once the lid is removed, the extra couple of millibars of pressure escape, and it immediately returns to 1000 millibars. Why would it be lower inside the cup without a lid on it than outside the cup?
I just finished demonstrating the falsity of that argument - - once the vapor had formed inside the cup with the lid still on, whatever energy in the liquid had gone into producing vapor had already been expended. No further energy from the liquid was required to permit the vapor to exit once the lid was off.
Duh. The liquid has dropped in temperature from the time when it was placed in the cup until the time the lid was removed. I didn't say that it suddenly dropped because the lid was removed. It is YOUR claim that removing the lid changes the total energy of the system. MY claim is that the
total energy (which includes the energy expended to increase pressure between the liquid and the lid) was not enough to cause boiling before it was handed to the woman, so the
total energy after it was handed to the woman is not enough to cause boiling - unless she added energy in some way.
Yes, that's a constant. There was always energy escaping from the walls of the cup, starting when the cup was being filled. The coffee remained hot enough, in my theory, to boil once the atmospheric pressure on it had fallen to a point where the new boiling point of the liquid became equal to or lesser than the actual temperature of the cup's contents, even after the escape of thermal energy through the walls of the cup.
And this is where we get into the "perpetual motion" part of your argument. If the total energy is not enough to cause boiling at point in time A, then there will never be enough total energy at point in time A+X to cause boiling
because of energy loss. If your argument is correct, then the total energy of the system increased somehow between time A and A+X without the addition of any outside energy - during that time somehow enough energy suddenly appeared in that system to cause boiling. This is the definition of perpetual motion.
