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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pielorinho" data-source="post: 994104" data-attributes="member: 259"><a href="http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/super/therm/tpteacher/demos/woodmetalrod.html" target="_blank">Here's a similar experiment involving no water at all</a>.  Place a metal rod and wooden dowel (of equal thickness) end-to-end, and wrap a piece of paper tightly around them so that it covers equal amounts of the wooden dowel and the metal rod.  Hold them over a bunsen burner.The paper over the wood won't burn right away, since paper conducts heat so well; but as the wood heats up, it'll begin to char the paper.  Wood doesn't conduct heat.Metal does, however, so the paper surrounding the metal won't burn at all, not until it's been in the fire for a really really long time (i.e., long enough for the metal rod itself to get really hot).Convinced yet?  Or is the paper getting soggy from being so close to metal?Daniel</blockquote>