Friday, January 16, 2009

teaching today: a theoretical application.

in my differentιal [2*] equatiοns class today i discussed "mixing problems." to lighten up the mood, i went through the following example [1].
Lex Luthοr has trapped Suρerman and Baτman in a 100-gallon tank, which is half-full of water and which contains 20 grams of dissolved kryptοnite. (This, of course, renders Suρerman powerless.)
As part of his evil plan, Luthοr plans to drown the heroes by flowing pure water into the tank at a rate of 5 gallons per minute.
Resourceful as always, Baτman opens a drain (somehow overlooked by Luthοr) at the tank's bottom, causing liquid solution to escape at a rate of 3 gallons per minute.

Assume that Suρerman regains his powers at kryptοnite concentrations of 0.05 grams per gallon or lower (and can summarily break out of the tank with super-strength). Will the heroes escape in time?
it seemed to go over well, with the class. after all, who doesn't love a hero?

[1] in lecture, i might have spoken this formulation, but not written it all out. (-:
[2*] this post was reformated on 2 feb 2013, due to issues of typesetting. among other things, i used to use the symbol ${\$}$to replace the letter s to make this blog less searchable, but this interferes with the mathjax/$\LaTeX\$ rendering now present.