A temperature-anomaly field over a metal plate has a warm patch reaching and a cool…
PHYSICS · Multi-part · Fermi University Physics · Computational Physics · Scientific programming for physicists · Scientific programming for physicists
Computational Physics, Ch Seeing the answer: plots that can be trusted
Problem
A temperature-anomaly field ΔT(x,y) over a metal plate has a warm patch reaching +5.0K and a cool patch reaching −3.0K, with ΔT=0K meaning no anomaly. A researcher draws the field as a filled contour map using a single-hue colour map (pale for small values, dark for large) with the colour scale set by vmin=0, vmax=5.0, and writes: "setting vmin to the smallest value the colour map is meant to show keeps the picture uncluttered." The resulting figure shows the warm patch distinctly, but the cool patch appears as the same pale colour as ΔT≈0, and the caption reads: "no evidence of any cooling was found."
((a)) Identify the error in how the colour scale was chosen.
((b)) State the repair, and what the repaired figure would actually show.