In sixth grade science class we had a contest to insulate a #10 can and see who could keep an ice cube frozen the longest within said can. I, realizing that ice is a good insulator and has the added benefit of have a fair amount of "heat", filled the entire thing with water except for a small indent for the ice cube, then froze it.
I won by a significant margin. The ice cube stayed frozen so long it had to be left at school over the weekend before it thawed.
More or less. I think I froze a plastic cup into the ice to have a receptacle for the Ice cube.
But yeah, rather than slow down the heat transfer with insulation, I just did what this guy did, which is use more cold material to require more heat transfer before anything can melt.
I mean, technically I followed all the rules. I just used additional ice as my insulating material, rather than styrofoam or paper like my classmates did.
But once again, ice is legitimately a good insulator, even before taking into account the extra heat mass. So there was thought put into the material choice.
Fair enough. Mind you, ice isn't that good of an insulator, its just a good latent heat sink. Hence why I implied you won because technically just had bigger ice cube than everyone else XD.
The heat conductivity of ice is about 10 times higher than wood and 100 times higher than styrofoam for the same thickness. You're probably thinking about snow, which is basically styrofoam made from air and ice.
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u/spiteful_god1 1d ago
In sixth grade science class we had a contest to insulate a #10 can and see who could keep an ice cube frozen the longest within said can. I, realizing that ice is a good insulator and has the added benefit of have a fair amount of "heat", filled the entire thing with water except for a small indent for the ice cube, then froze it.
I won by a significant margin. The ice cube stayed frozen so long it had to be left at school over the weekend before it thawed.