Posted by
Jackalope on Monday, April 16, 2007 9:51:15 AM
It's simple:
In the experiment a frog was dropped into a pot of hot (not boiling) water. It immediately jumped out, as would any sensible frog. Then it was placed in a pot of cool water sitting on a stove. This was more to its liking, so it swam about and lounged comfortably. The heat was turned on and raised very gradually. Soon it was hotter than the water in the first experiment, but the frog didn’t jump out. This was because there was no dramatic difference, as there had been when it was taken from room temperature and dropped into hot water. The frog became accustomed to the increased temperature as it was raised little by little. Before long the temperature was so high that the frog was unable to jump out of the pot, and it died.