Thursday, February 21, 2008

Taking a shower in Youth Hostels: risks and delights of heterogeneity


http://arxiv.org/abs/0801.1573v1
from NewScientist.com:

Tweaking taps for a constantly warm shower

IS IT possible to have a shower of constant warmth when you're sharing a hot-water supply?

Christina Matzke at the University of Bonn in Germany and Damien Challet of the Institute for Scientific Interchange in Turin, Italy, used a mathematical model to show that shower temperature becomes increasingly sensitive to small changes in hot-water flow as the number of users increases. Thus in a youth hostel, for example, the showers often fluctuate between scalding hot and ice cold during heavy use.

The temperature can stabilise, however, if bathers adopt a range of strategies for adjusting the shower taps - for example, if some fiddle with the hot tap while others tweak the cold. But that comes at a price: what hot water there is then gets distributed evenly, so everyone's shower becomes colder than they might like.

6 comments:

~ Grace ~ Chan said...

You'll never notice the hot water necessity when you are in the Philippines because it's always hot so the cold shower comes as a blessing. But nevertheless, when I went to Harbin, I crave for the warm water. I only found out that the hotel I'm staying in turns on the Hot water supply after 7 in the morning when I got up early to take a shower to avoid the breakfast rush. Silly me, stood there in the cold shower braving the cold water in the cold bathroom. hehehe

Monkey Boy is Hungry said...

actually, i could relate somewhat. JG's showers don't have hot water for some time now (prolly they didn't bother since we're leaving the building soon anyways). so whenever i use the showers here, i have to endure the really cold water.

~ Grace ~ Chan said...

hehehe... When are you guys leaving JG? I will miss that building. Spent like 4 years or more there.

Monkey Boy is Hungry said...

early march. ako din, halos 4 years din akong nag-stay sa building na to.

~ Grace ~ Chan said...

hahaha oo nga. we're all veterans there. ehehe... Were you able to stay at all 5 floors? Ako 30th lng hindi ko na stay.

Monkey Boy is Hungry said...

nope, sa 32nd at 33rd lang ako napunta.