ANSWERS: 6
  • Silver then Copper.
  • Silver is the best by far. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_conductivity
  • All of the answer to this point have been for electrical conductivity. However, the question is asking about thermal conductivity. Thermal conductivity and electrical conductivity tend to go hand in hand, but they are not the same thing. Of the choices above, silver does still top the list for thermal conductivity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_conductivity#List_of_thermal_conductivities). Platinum is not on that list. However, according to a couple of other sites (http://www.webelements.com/webelements/elements/text/Pt/heat.html & http://www.platinum.matthey.com/applications/properties.html), it thermal conductivity is only 72 or 73. So, it is the least conductive of thes five elements.
  • Aluminium is the fastest it is a simple and cheat test with a thermocouple, place a soldering iron on one end of 2 identical size pieces and pick a temp and time the speed, aluminium beats silver every time and by a huge margin. But it is a trcik question of sorts, the physics charts all relating to thermal properies are by molecular mass not relative size, EG: a piece of aluminium of a 2 inch cube has about 20 percent of the molecluar mass of a cube of silver the same, hence the reason it heats about 3 times faster. (kinda cheating on this answer though, I run an electrical engineering firm that builds industrial heating equipment and we use a lot of aluminium for that reason, and for the price they pay we could as easilly use silver sheet but it's crap.)
  • turtles conduct better than all of them!

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