Why Does Metal Feel Colder Than Wood?

Why does an aluminum railing feel so much colder than a wooden bench on the same cold morning? It isn't colder: a thermometer reads 50 °F (10 °C) on both. Your skin, at about 91 °F (33 °C), feels how quickly it is losing heat, and aluminum moves heat well over 1,000 times better than wood: its thermal conductivity is about 205 watts per meter per kelvin, while wood's is only about 0.12. This video also explains what thermal conductivity is, shows what happens inside the metal and the wood under your finger, and explains why the same idea makes a metal slide feel hotter than a wooden bench on a hot, sunny afternoon. Try it yourself: ▶ https://www.metric-conversions.org/temperature/fahrenheit-to-celsius.htm ▶ https://www.metric-conversions.org/temperature-conversion.htm Chapters: 0:00 The puzzle 0:36 What your skin really feels 1:11 Thermal conductivity 1:46 Inside the material 2:15 It works in reverse Sources: • Heat Balance in the Human Body (UBC): https://c21.phas.ubc.ca/article/heat-balance-in-the-human-body-2 • Thermal Conductivity (HyperPhysics): http://hyperphysics.gsu.edu/hbase/Tables/thrcn.html • Fahrenheit to Celsius (metric-conversions.org): https://www.metric-conversions.org/temperature/fahrenheit-to-celsius.htm • Why Does Metal Feel So Cold? (How Everything Works): https://howeverythingworks.com/why-metal-feel-cold/ Is there anything else you'd like us to cover? Let us know in the comments below.