Why does aluminum foil never get hot to the touch. You can leave it in the oven and touch it directly out of the oven without it feeling hot. Why is this?
In: Physics
Very high surface area:mass ratio.
Heat capacity is related to density (mass per unit volume), heat transfer (moving heat out of an object) is related to surface area.
The aluminum heats up to the same temperature as everything else in the oven (quite a but faster than anything else in the oven – aluminum is a good thermal conductor), but a sheet of foil has almost no mass, but tons and tons of surface area.
This means is ‘exhausts’ its heat very quickly.
If you touch foil *right* out of the oven, it is hot – but within a few seconds it has cooled down to air temperature.
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