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?

Just another thought about why this is an incorrect answer -- while in may cases it is very high, oil does have a flash point and will catch fire- crude oil for example ranges between 100 and 200 degrees, if the steel is hot enough to boil water, which has far lower specific heat value and will therfore absorb less energy, before rasing temperature, the threat of igniting the oil is very real. Any chemist ot blacksmith would cringe at the thought of placing super-heated steel into oil.

Posted by Eberhard on 2003-11-21 12:48:19