A blacksmith wishes to cool his hot piece of steel as rapidly as possible. He has a bucket of ice-water and a bucket of oil (at room temperature). Which bucket should he dump his steel into?

Another reason why I disagree with the answer is because the bucket of oil is AT ROOM TEMPERATURE, usually about 20 C.

So, as soon as he'd dump his steel into the bucket of oil, oil's temperature would be HIGHER than air's temperature. So steel would cool SLOWER in oil than simply cooling it with air.

So, the 2 best choices are air or ice-water. And at near 0 C, ice-water is the obvious choice.
Edited on November 8, 2003, 4:29 pm

Posted by Bruno on 2003-11-08 16:28:56