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From: norman@lasspvax.UUCP (Norman Ramsey)
Newsgroups: net.puzzle,net.math
Subject: Re: Polar Bear Problem Sequel
Message-ID: <623@lasspvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 25-Oct-85 12:39:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: lasspvax.623
Posted: Fri Oct 25 12:39:18 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 26-Oct-85 19:59:05 EDT
References: <361@proper.UUCP> <367@faron.UUCP> <10755@ucbvax.ARPA>
Reply-To: norman@lasspvax.UUCP (Norman Ramsey)
Distribution: net
Organization: LASSP, Cornell University
Lines: 20
Xref: watmath net.puzzle:1086 net.math:2429
Summary: 

In article <10755@ucbvax.ARPA> c160-3ay@ucbzooey.UUCP (Ranjit Bhatnagar) writes:
>By the way: heat causes metal to expand.  If you have a piece of metal
>with a spherical hole in it, does the hole expand, contract, or remain
>the same when the metal is heated?  What about a square hole?  I don't
>know the answer!

The hole expands. Thermal expansion dilates a whole object. Some people like
to think about metal doughnuts; the doughnut does the same thing on heating
whether the hole is present or not. I personally would rather think about
dilates, or just renormalizing (there's that word again) the measure of
distannce to obtain the original object.

-- 
Norman Ramsey

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