Question

A light bulb is switched on and within a few minutes its temperature becomes constant. Is it at equilibrium or steady state.

Answer 1

Answer:

The temperature attains equilibrium with the surroundings.  

Explanation:

When the light bulb is lighted we know that it's temperature will go on increasing as the filament of the bulb has to  constantly dissipates energy during the time in which it is on. Now this energy is dissipated as heat as we know it, this heat energy is absorbed by the material of the bulb which is usually made up of glass, increasing it's temperature. Now we know that any object with temperature above absolute zero has to dissipate energy in form of radiations.

Thus we conclude that the bulb absorbs as well as dissipates it's absorbed thermal energy. we know that this rate is dependent on the temperature of the bulb thus it the temperature of the bulb does not change we can infer that an equilibrium has been reached in the above 2 processes i.e the rate of energy absorption equals the rate of energy dissipation.

Steady state is the condition when the condition does not change with time no matter whatever the surrounding conditions are.