Chapter 2 Question 4 Answer:

(1) The Altoids container

The Altoids container came to thermodynamic equilibrium first. The Advil bottle is made out of plastic, whereas the Altoids container is made out of metal. The Advil bottle to bouncd around longer (i.e. longer time to reach mechanical equilibrium), and since plastic is a good thermal insulator, I would expect it to take longer to come to thermal equlibrium, though I don't have any measurement of this, the point of the example is to illustrate that for a system to be in thermodynamic equilibrium, it must be in thermal equlibrium, mechanical equilibrium, and chemical equilibrium (if it is a reacting system).

Class Response (2003):

Class Response (2002):