Spreading rate of spilled liquid. Refer to the Chemical Engineering Progress (Jan. 2005) study of the rate at which a spilled volatile liquid will spread across a surface, presented in Exercise 2.168 (p. 125). Recall that a DuPont Corp. engineer calculated the mass (in pounds) of a 50-gallon methanol spill after a period ranging from 0 to 60 minutes. Do the data shown in the accompanying tableindicate that the mass of the spill tends to diminish as time increases? If so, how much will the mass diminish each minute?

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Time (minutes) 0 Mass (pounds) 01246 6.64 6.34 6.04 5.47 6 4.94 8 4.44 10 3.98 12 3.55 14 3.15 16 2.79 18 2.45 20 2.14 22 1.86 24 1.60 26 1.37 28 1.17 30 0.98 35 0.60 40 0.34 45 0.17 50 0.06 55 0.02 60 0.00