Nick hypothesizes that wax has a higher melting point than chocolate. How can Nick test his hypothesis?

Question

confusionist · Answer

Heat equal masses of wax and chocolate and measure their temperatures when they start to melt.

anonymous · Answer

He can get two equal masses of wax and chocolate heat them as @Confusionist wrote, but at the same time, while identical thermometers are placed in both samples, to record temperatures at melting.

anonymous · Answer

Formally, Nick is testing a hypothesis.  This means that he must try to disprove it.  To disprove this hypothesis, Nick would have to demonstrate that wax melted at the same, or lower temperature as does chocolate.

An appropriate experiment would be to determine the melting point of chocolate, and then attempt to melt wax at that temperature.  If the wax fails to melt, then Nick has failed to disprove his hypothesis, which is what he hopes to happen, in hypothesis testing.

Lacking a good thermometer, and a good scale (and identical masses aren't required for the previously given answers either), Nick could melt some chocolate, and then try to melt wax in the melted chocolate bath. If the wax fails to melt, it clearly has a higher melting point than the chocolate.  Alternatively, if Nick wasn't sure he could keep the chocolate very close to its melting temperature, Nick could put some chocolate and some wax in a pan, and heat it enough to melt both, then cool the pan and observe which of the substances solidified first.  Of course, this latter approach runs the risk of creating Hershey's "chocolate" as a result.