[DannyBee]

Today we learn about dew points?

This is no different than why you have vapor barriers in certain climates.

Without trying to sound dismissive, i was not aware there was a lot of experimentation here necessary to figure out the temperature at which the water would stop condensing on the plate again.

Still a fun article, of course :)

[mattdeboard]

This post is a great example of what was discussed here

http://brooklynoptimist.com/2014/04/10/hacker-school-banning...

YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN'T HEARD OF DEW POINTS??

[y4mi]

i know of a few times that i showed surprise finding out that somebody never heard about something.

this surprise was however never about the other person, but about myself. i realized, that my worldview was so skewed about some topics, that i believed them to be almost universally accepted. the topics themselves were often unknown to people outside of my online-bubble.

[DannyBee]

I agree with this in theory, but you are talking about stuff that is a required part of all {4,5,6}th grade science curriculums in the US, and the equivalent in other countries.

I was not feigning surprise, I am literally surprised that this was not realized

[vl]

>Today we learn about dew points?

Huh, so why condensate appears? Cold air in the room is not at dew point, even if it's heated around bread and then cooled again, content of water stays the same, so what is the reason for it condensate?

[simcop2387]

In this case the toast makes a nearly closed system below the bread next to the plate. Since the toast is cooling off and giving off some steam it will add a significant amount of moisture more than the air originally had. Once that happens the dew point will quickly reach the current room temperature. Raising the temperature of the plate above that temperature means that there is more moisture needed to do this.

[vl]

So you are saying that if toast is toasted longer and would lose most of the water content while still in the toaster, there will be no condensate on the plate?

[simcop2387]

Quite possible. The issue then would be how to toast it that long without burning the bread. I suspect if you use an infrared toaster and have lots of dry air flowing through the toaster you might be able to do it. What I don't know is if doing this might ruin the toast. Removing all the moisture might leave it more like a crouton than a piece of toast.

[trentlott]

An hour in the library is equal to six months in the lab, it's said.

But you don't get blog visits that way, you know.