Thermal Conductivity of Ancient Bronze
Most recent answer: 07/10/2015
- Fil Salamone (age 43)
Surrey, England
That's a very interesting question. We can estimate the thermal conductivity of a room temperature metal pretty well just by knowing the electrical conductivity, since the same electrons that carry the current are also mostly responsible for carrying heat. That's called the Wiedemann-Franz law ().
Here's a site that gives electrical conductivities of various metals. You can see that some, e.g. stainless steel, are far lower than copper, around 2.5% as conductive. That's why stainless cooking pots can often get away with using stainless handles. I guess a curling tong could also work that way.
The conductivities of various bronzes, however, are all over the place. Some are about half as conductive as copper but others are less than 10% as conductive. We don't know what bronze was used for these alleged curling tongs. So it's hard to know if anybody could have handled them.
Mike W.
(published on 07/10/2015)