Why it pays to have your own apartment

9.11.07

Subject: heaters in the dorm rooms
Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2007 09:07:36 +0800
From: CEIBS Logistics
To: All MBA Students

Dear All,

Some of you want to know when the heaters will be turned on in the dorm rooms, now the official comment is that the heaters will be turned on when the lowest temperature drops below 10 degrees Celsius. Thanks.

Best Regards,
<Undisclosed>
Logistic Department


little more than an hour later...

---

From: <Undisclosed Exchange Student>
To: CEIBS Logistics

Dear <Undisclosed> and CEIBS Logistics,

Thank you for the email. Can you explain to me the reasoning behind the 10 degrees Celsius benchmark? Why this number and not 15C? Or 17C? I don't want to be rude, but don't you think 10C is a little cold?

From my understanding of basic thermodynamics, if the outside temperature is 10C, via equilibrium, one can expect that the temperature in our rooms will also be approximately 10C. Note: my analysis does not take into account the assumed heat generated from our moving bodies and running computers. However, the internationally accepted room temperature is around 18C to 23C (see below for room temperature definition).

<Email followed by a rather large excerpt from Wikipedia, defining room temperature as being between 18-23 degrees>


three days and a surge in enraged email traffic later...

---

Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2007 15:25:58 +0800
From: Students Committee
To: All MBA Students

Dear fellow students,

I want to thank you all for your trust in the Student Committee and your contribution on the BBS thread.

As you know, under the current policy, heating on campus will be activated when the minimum temperature drops below 10 grades. Thanks to the intervention and great effort of <Undisclosed>, the school is ready to provide additional heating in the dorm between 8PM-8AM when the min. temp drops below 12. Below is the official web site of Shanghai Government, it’s used as the standard measure for our heating application:

http://www.smb.gov.cn/PortalQXJ/ForecastWeather.aspx?cate=159 (this is in Chinese, there’s a link English version but the data in English is not updated)

According to the forecast, the min. temp. might reach 11 grades tomorrow (10/Nov). If that happens we will have the heating turned on during this weekend.