Ladies and Gentlemen, I want to ask you if you have experienced or know of
any stories about a particular phenomenon when quenching a red hot steel rod
in water. I have included repeated posting history below for reference.
One post is from Mr. Kolesnik in mid-2005, followed by my response to that
string when I discovered it. Then my two original posts follow that. If
you know about this phenomenon, please respond to the group here.

repeat Henry Kolesnik post on
I don't know if this is the right place to ask this question, but if it's
not please point me to the correct group.

Back in the fifties I recall heating the end of a 20 inch long piece of 1
inch cold rolled steel bar stock in a blacksmith forge to red hot. On
several occasions, instead of hammering the piece on an anvil I would plunge
it into the water because someone asked me to do something else. On these
occasions I noticed that the end that I was holding would seem to get much
hotter faster when plunged versus when hammering on the piece. For some
reason the heat traveled to the part I was holding faster when plunged
versus being forged. Is there a scientific reason for what happened or has
my memory deceived me?
tnx
repeat Henry Kolesnik post off

my response to Henry's post on
What an interesting and timely account given by Mr. Kolesnik, as I have
experienced the same phenomenon. I recently posted in several physics
newsgroups looking for an explanation after ~20 years of wondering about it.
Responses have been sparse and mostly theoretical guesswork or conjectures
(which I appreciate and consider), but without any experience of the
phenomenon or knowledge of cases (my actual question). One respondent in
sci.physics.research (p.kinsler) suggested that I try asking in an
engineering newsgroup (he also mentioned hearing about "thermal
inertia" being used to describe this phenomenon). I started doing that
today and came across Mr. Kolesnik's account. So I will repeat my post
below after a few comments.

In response to a sci.physics respondent (tadchem, Tom Davidson), I would
like to point out in the account I give below that the temperature
measurement was differential with both hands starting at room temperature.
He is generally right in saying "The human nervous system is a notoriously
unreliable and impossible to calibrate sensor", especially with single-ended
measurements (one hand). But the statement also implies an exaggeration to
the exclusion of trusting what we sense as humans and trusting only modern
test data. I see that Mr. Kolesnik experienced some of the same in his
respondents, but in his case he repeatedly experienced the same phenomenon
(I experienced it once), and neither of us fell of the potato truck
yesterday. True, in modern life it is possible to measure the phenomenon
with electronic instrumentation, and wouldn't that be nice to do. But such
a thing requires some effort and costs, which also in modern times is
generally not done without some chance of a payback on the investment. Such
an experiment might be done when someone with authority over efforts and
costs decides that maybe Mr. Kolesnik and I actually experienced something
interesting, interesting enough to imagine a payback of some kind for their
operation. Until then, the rest of us are stuck with our nervous systems to
observe with our hand (differential is better) the heat spike produced when
a steel rod with a red hot end is quenched. Like Mr. Kolesnik, it isn't the
steam produced.
my response to Henry's post off

repeat my original post on
As an example, from page 34 of
http://web.mit.edu/2.151/www/Handouts/EnPwrFlow.pdf (other references easy
to find)

"Thermal Inductance: No significant physical phenomenon has been observed
which corresponds to energy storage due to heat flow in a "thermal
inductor". Thus only one thermal energy storage element, the thermal
capacitance, is defined."

and of course, we have thermal resistance.

So it appears that thermal resistance and thermal capacitance but no thermal
inductance phenomena have been observed. Does anyone know of any cases
where thermal inductance has been observed?
repeat my original post off

repeat my second post on
Thanks for your response (and Mikko Kiviranta's), as there have been very
few in this (and other newsgroups). I am asking others about their
knowledge of any cases of thermal inductance being observed, because it is
one explanation for an event that I experienced about 20 years ago. I'll
briefly describe the event.

I was holding a 6 foot long piece of rebar (about 1/2" diameter steel rod,
commonly used to reinforce concrete) at arms length while a friend I was
helping was cutting it in half with an oxy-acetylene torch (I think steel
melts at ~1400 C). It was cut in half and both ends were brightly red hot.
After cutting, I moved my hands towards the ends to hold one 3 foot piece in
each hand at the cool end. There was a D-shaped tank (about 12" wide, 3
feet long, 2 feet high, flat of D facing up) filled with water nearby, about
2 inches from the top. So I dipped one of the hot ends in the water
gingerly a few times to cool it at about a 30 degree angle from the floor. I
didn't want to make a lot of steam quickly, as I thought that rapid
cooling might alter the metal somehow and my friend was going to weld the
two pieces to a piece of angle iron afterwards. The steam ball made was
about 4-6 inches in diameter at most as I recall. Within 15 seconds or so,
the 3 foot rod I was cooling became so hot that I couldn't hold it anymore,
so I dropped it into the tank. I was still holding the other rod in my
other hand (still glowing red hot) and it was only slightly warm where I
held it. I cooled it off too and we went about the next step of welding the
two pieces to the angle iron.

I do not have access to a torch or rebar to recreate the event since then,
but I've often thought about what I experienced ever since. I wonder if I
experienced thermal inductance, analogous to an inductive kick in
electronics. I still wonder about it and would appreciate any considered
explanations you may have (or others in this group).

I looked into the case you state regarding the violation of the second law
and found an interesting statement on page 144 of
http://www.tu-harburg.de/mst/deutsch...f/kap6_eng.pdf
that leads towards "extended irreversible thermodynamics" (I'm still reading
on this). It notes the same thing you stated, and goes on to say:

"Now we can only draw the conclusion that this effect is usually of no
importance for us, but in no way we can conclude that there is no such thing
like a thermal inductance. An apparent contradiction results between
thermal inductance and the second law of the thermodynamics, which states
the well known fact that entropy is always increasing. By this it is
usually concluded, that a heat flow is directed along the gradient of
temperature. On the other hand, due to the relation (see text) a constant
heat flow can appear at a thermal inductance also if the temperature
difference disappears, which apparently contradicts the statement of the
second law of thermodynamics. The above consideration shows that the
phenomenon of thermal inductance is of importance, if we consider a
high-speed process, for example the heating by short-time laser pulses.
Classical thermodynamics assumes slow changes, so that the system is in a
quasi-stationary status. By inclusion of an additional state variable (i.e.
the flux of energy), it is possible to introduce a definition of entropy,
which is in accordance to the second law of thermodynamic, whereby the
contradiction is eliminated. This theory is call extended irreversible
thermodynamics."
repeat my second post off

s.morra wrote:

I was holding a 6 foot long piece of rebar (about 1/2" diameter steel rod, ...

Do you want a answer? But I might be wrong!

If you put the hot bar into water, the water helps to transport the heat
to the other end. Iron isn't such a good thermal conductor.
Everyone welding knows how long you can hold a piece of steel in your
hands just welded.


Now this, is, ... well, I don't know! Just guessing:
Also, it might be interesting to have a curve that shows thermal
conductivity vs. temperature of steel. Does it degrease with
temperature? There might be a "hidden secret", together with the water's
thermal conductivity.


Nick
--
Motormodelle / Engine Models:
http://www.motor-manufaktur.de
Ellwe 2FB * VTM 87 * DLM-S3a * cubic
more to come ...

"s.morra" asked a question about the concept of "thermal inductance," in an
effort to explain a heating/cooling phenomenon. Since we know there is
thermal resistance (the reciprocal of thermal conductivity,) and thermal
capacitance (product of mass and specific heat,) it seems as though, by
analogy, one should look for thermal inductance as well.

The first thing to note, here, is that heat flow is described by the
diffusion equation, while electrical phenomena obey the potential equation.
These are two separate differential equations, so it does not surprise me
nor trouble me that inductance is absent from all heat flow phenomena.

I doubt that the fast heating of a quenched rod really happens. If it were
a tube, I can attest that it does happen, because steam travels up the
inside of the tube. Possibly, something like that can happen to a lesser
degree on a solid bar, but I suspect that it is mostly psychological. It
would not be hard to do a test. I have a torch, and I have a Fluke meter
that can be hooked to a thermocouple. In fact, this would make an excellent
science fair project, but I'm a little old for that. However, if there is
enough interest, I would be willing to carry it out and report the results.

On Fri, 26 Aug 2005 15:09:05 -0500, "s.morra"
wrote:

Ladies and Gentlemen, I want to ask you if you have experienced or know of
any stories about a particular phenomenon when quenching a red hot steel rod
in water. I have included repeated posting history below for reference.
One post is from Mr. Kolesnik in mid-2005, followed by my response to that
string when I discovered it. Then my two original posts follow that. If
you know about this phenomenon, please respond to the group here.

repeat Henry Kolesnik post on
I don't know if this is the right place to ask this question, but if it's
not please point me to the correct group.

Back in the fifties I recall heating the end of a 20 inch long piece of 1
inch cold rolled steel bar stock in a blacksmith forge to red hot. On
several occasions, instead of hammering the piece on an anvil I would plunge
it into the water because someone asked me to do something else. On these
occasions I noticed that the end that I was holding would seem to get much
hotter faster when plunged versus when hammering on the piece. For some
reason the heat traveled to the part I was holding faster when plunged
versus being forged. Is there a scientific reason for what happened or has
my memory deceived me?

(snip)

It's an illusion.

If you heat two bars identically, then plunge one in a quenching bath
while holding both, the rate of temperature increase at the ends
you're holding will initally be about the same.

Heat propagates thru a material at a rate determined by its thermal
conductivity, specific heat and temperature gradient. . This
process can be (has been) treated as a boundary value problem with
partial differential equations.

The illusion is caused by heat that is "on the way" from the heated
end to the held end. Quenching the hot end still leaves a hot region
in the middle, which will continue to propagate (now in both
directions) thru the bar. Quenching the end does not instantly
quench the middle, just as heating the end didn't instantly heat the
middle.

"s.morra" wrote in message
...
Ladies and Gentlemen, I want to ask you if you have experienced or know of
any stories about a particular phenomenon when quenching a red hot steel
rod in water. I have included repeated posting history below for
reference. One post is from Mr. Kolesnik in mid-2005, followed by my
response to that string when I discovered it. Then my two original posts
follow that. If you know about this phenomenon, please respond to the
group here.

repeat Henry Kolesnik post on
I don't know if this is the right place to ask this question, but if it's
not please point me to the correct group.

Back in the fifties I recall heating the end of a 20 inch long piece of 1
inch cold rolled steel bar stock in a blacksmith forge to red hot. On
several occasions, instead of hammering the piece on an anvil I would
plunge it into the water because someone asked me to do something else.
On these occasions I noticed that the end that I was holding would seem to
get much hotter faster when plunged versus when hammering on the piece.
For some reason the heat traveled to the part I was holding faster when
plunged versus being forged. Is there a scientific reason for what
happened or has my memory deceived me?
tnx
repeat Henry Kolesnik post off

my response to Henry's post on
What an interesting and timely account given by Mr. Kolesnik, as I have
experienced the same phenomenon. I recently posted in several physics
newsgroups looking for an explanation after ~20 years of wondering about
it. Responses have been sparse and mostly theoretical guesswork or
conjectures (which I appreciate and consider), but without any experience
of the phenomenon or knowledge of cases (my actual question). One
respondent in sci.physics.research (p.kinsler) suggested that I try asking
in an engineering newsgroup (he also mentioned hearing about "thermal
inertia" being used to describe this phenomenon). I started doing that
today and came across Mr. Kolesnik's account. So I will repeat my post
below after a few comments.

In response to a sci.physics respondent (tadchem, Tom Davidson), I would
like to point out in the account I give below that the temperature
measurement was differential with both hands starting at room temperature.
He is generally right in saying "The human nervous system is a notoriously
unreliable and impossible to calibrate sensor", especially with
single-ended measurements (one hand). But the statement also implies an
exaggeration to
the exclusion of trusting what we sense as humans and trusting only modern
test data. I see that Mr. Kolesnik experienced some of the same in his
respondents, but in his case he repeatedly experienced the same phenomenon
(I experienced it once), and neither of us fell of the potato truck
yesterday. True, in modern life it is possible to measure the phenomenon
with electronic instrumentation, and wouldn't that be nice to do. But
such
a thing requires some effort and costs, which also in modern times is
generally not done without some chance of a payback on the investment.
Such
an experiment might be done when someone with authority over efforts and
costs decides that maybe Mr. Kolesnik and I actually experienced something
interesting, interesting enough to imagine a payback of some kind for
their operation. Until then, the rest of us are stuck with our nervous
systems to observe with our hand (differential is better) the heat spike
produced when a steel rod with a red hot end is quenched. Like Mr.
Kolesnik, it isn't the steam produced.
my response to Henry's post off

repeat my original post on
As an example, from page 34 of
http://web.mit.edu/2.151/www/Handouts/EnPwrFlow.pdf (other references easy
to find)

"Thermal Inductance: No significant physical phenomenon has been observed
which corresponds to energy storage due to heat flow in a "thermal
inductor". Thus only one thermal energy storage element, the thermal
capacitance, is defined."

and of course, we have thermal resistance.

So it appears that thermal resistance and thermal capacitance but no
thermal inductance phenomena have been observed. Does anyone know of any
cases where thermal inductance has been observed?
repeat my original post off

repeat my second post on
Thanks for your response (and Mikko Kiviranta's), as there have been very
few in this (and other newsgroups). I am asking others about their
knowledge of any cases of thermal inductance being observed, because it is
one explanation for an event that I experienced about 20 years ago. I'll
briefly describe the event.

I was holding a 6 foot long piece of rebar (about 1/2" diameter steel rod,
commonly used to reinforce concrete) at arms length while a friend I was
helping was cutting it in half with an oxy-acetylene torch (I think steel
melts at ~1400 C). It was cut in half and both ends were brightly red
hot. After cutting, I moved my hands towards the ends to hold one 3 foot
piece in each hand at the cool end. There was a D-shaped tank (about 12"
wide, 3
feet long, 2 feet high, flat of D facing up) filled with water nearby,
about 2 inches from the top. So I dipped one of the hot ends in the water
gingerly a few times to cool it at about a 30 degree angle from the floor.
I didn't want to make a lot of steam quickly, as I thought that rapid
cooling might alter the metal somehow and my friend was going to weld the
two pieces to a piece of angle iron afterwards. The steam ball made was
about 4-6 inches in diameter at most as I recall. Within 15 seconds or
so, the 3 foot rod I was cooling became so hot that I couldn't hold it
anymore,
so I dropped it into the tank. I was still holding the other rod in my
other hand (still glowing red hot) and it was only slightly warm where I
held it. I cooled it off too and we went about the next step of welding
the two pieces to the angle iron.

I do not have access to a torch or rebar to recreate the event since then,
but I've often thought about what I experienced ever since. I wonder if I
experienced thermal inductance, analogous to an inductive kick in
electronics. I still wonder about it and would appreciate any considered
explanations you may have (or others in this group).

I looked into the case you state regarding the violation of the second law
and found an interesting statement on page 144 of
http://www.tu-harburg.de/mst/deutsch...f/kap6_eng.pdf
that leads towards "extended irreversible thermodynamics" (I'm still
reading
on this). It notes the same thing you stated, and goes on to say:

"Now we can only draw the conclusion that this effect is usually of no
importance for us, but in no way we can conclude that there is no such
thing
like a thermal inductance. An apparent contradiction results between
thermal inductance and the second law of the thermodynamics, which states
the well known fact that entropy is always increasing. By this it is
usually concluded, that a heat flow is directed along the gradient of
temperature. On the other hand, due to the relation (see text) a constant
heat flow can appear at a thermal inductance also if the temperature
difference disappears, which apparently contradicts the statement of the
second law of thermodynamics. The above consideration shows that the
phenomenon of thermal inductance is of importance, if we consider a
high-speed process, for example the heating by short-time laser pulses.
Classical thermodynamics assumes slow changes, so that the system is in a
quasi-stationary status. By inclusion of an additional state variable
(i.e. the flux of energy), it is possible to introduce a definition of
entropy, which is in accordance to the second law of thermodynamic,
whereby the contradiction is eliminated. This theory is call extended
irreversible thermodynamics."
repeat my second post off


I know exactly what you mean and you are right! The best explination I have
heard is that the heat doesn't like the cold water and runs to the other end
to get away.

On Sat, 27 Aug 2005 00:37:17 GMT, "Tom Gardner"
wrote:


"s.morra" wrote in message
...
Ladies and Gentlemen, I want to ask you if you have experienced or know of
any stories about a particular phenomenon when quenching a red hot steel
rod in water. I have included repeated posting history below for
reference. One post is from Mr. Kolesnik in mid-2005, followed by my
response to that string when I discovered it. Then my two original posts
follow that. If you know about this phenomenon, please respond to the
group here.

repeat Henry Kolesnik post on
I don't know if this is the right place to ask this question, but if it's
not please point me to the correct group.

Back in the fifties I recall heating the end of a 20 inch long piece of 1
inch cold rolled steel bar stock in a blacksmith forge to red hot. On
several occasions, instead of hammering the piece on an anvil I would
plunge it into the water because someone asked me to do something else.
On these occasions I noticed that the end that I was holding would seem to
get much hotter faster when plunged versus when hammering on the piece.
For some reason the heat traveled to the part I was holding faster when
plunged versus being forged. Is there a scientific reason for what
happened or has my memory deceived me?
tnx
repeat Henry Kolesnik post off

my response to Henry's post on
What an interesting and timely account given by Mr. Kolesnik, as I have
experienced the same phenomenon. I recently posted in several physics
newsgroups looking for an explanation after ~20 years of wondering about
it. Responses have been sparse and mostly theoretical guesswork or
conjectures (which I appreciate and consider), but without any experience
of the phenomenon or knowledge of cases (my actual question). One
respondent in sci.physics.research (p.kinsler) suggested that I try asking
in an engineering newsgroup (he also mentioned hearing about "thermal
inertia" being used to describe this phenomenon). I started doing that
today and came across Mr. Kolesnik's account. So I will repeat my post
below after a few comments.

In response to a sci.physics respondent (tadchem, Tom Davidson), I would
like to point out in the account I give below that the temperature
measurement was differential with both hands starting at room temperature.
He is generally right in saying "The human nervous system is a notoriously
unreliable and impossible to calibrate sensor", especially with
single-ended measurements (one hand). But the statement also implies an
exaggeration to
the exclusion of trusting what we sense as humans and trusting only modern
test data. I see that Mr. Kolesnik experienced some of the same in his
respondents, but in his case he repeatedly experienced the same phenomenon
(I experienced it once), and neither of us fell of the potato truck
yesterday. True, in modern life it is possible to measure the phenomenon
with electronic instrumentation, and wouldn't that be nice to do. But
such
a thing requires some effort and costs, which also in modern times is
generally not done without some chance of a payback on the investment.
Such
an experiment might be done when someone with authority over efforts and
costs decides that maybe Mr. Kolesnik and I actually experienced something
interesting, interesting enough to imagine a payback of some kind for
their operation. Until then, the rest of us are stuck with our nervous
systems to observe with our hand (differential is better) the heat spike
produced when a steel rod with a red hot end is quenched. Like Mr.
Kolesnik, it isn't the steam produced.
my response to Henry's post off

repeat my original post on
As an example, from page 34 of
http://web.mit.edu/2.151/www/Handouts/EnPwrFlow.pdf (other references easy
to find)

"Thermal Inductance: No significant physical phenomenon has been observed
which corresponds to energy storage due to heat flow in a "thermal
inductor". Thus only one thermal energy storage element, the thermal
capacitance, is defined."

and of course, we have thermal resistance.

So it appears that thermal resistance and thermal capacitance but no
thermal inductance phenomena have been observed. Does anyone know of any
cases where thermal inductance has been observed?
repeat my original post off

repeat my second post on
Thanks for your response (and Mikko Kiviranta's), as there have been very
few in this (and other newsgroups). I am asking others about their
knowledge of any cases of thermal inductance being observed, because it is
one explanation for an event that I experienced about 20 years ago. I'll
briefly describe the event.

I was holding a 6 foot long piece of rebar (about 1/2" diameter steel rod,
commonly used to reinforce concrete) at arms length while a friend I was
helping was cutting it in half with an oxy-acetylene torch (I think steel
melts at ~1400 C). It was cut in half and both ends were brightly red
hot. After cutting, I moved my hands towards the ends to hold one 3 foot
piece in each hand at the cool end. There was a D-shaped tank (about 12"
wide, 3
feet long, 2 feet high, flat of D facing up) filled with water nearby,
about 2 inches from the top. So I dipped one of the hot ends in the water
gingerly a few times to cool it at about a 30 degree angle from the floor.
I didn't want to make a lot of steam quickly, as I thought that rapid
cooling might alter the metal somehow and my friend was going to weld the
two pieces to a piece of angle iron afterwards. The steam ball made was
about 4-6 inches in diameter at most as I recall. Within 15 seconds or
so, the 3 foot rod I was cooling became so hot that I couldn't hold it
anymore,
so I dropped it into the tank. I was still holding the other rod in my
other hand (still glowing red hot) and it was only slightly warm where I
held it. I cooled it off too and we went about the next step of welding
the two pieces to the angle iron.

I do not have access to a torch or rebar to recreate the event since then,
but I've often thought about what I experienced ever since. I wonder if I
experienced thermal inductance, analogous to an inductive kick in
electronics. I still wonder about it and would appreciate any considered
explanations you may have (or others in this group).

I looked into the case you state regarding the violation of the second law
and found an interesting statement on page 144 of
http://www.tu-harburg.de/mst/deutsch...f/kap6_eng.pdf
that leads towards "extended irreversible thermodynamics" (I'm still
reading
on this). It notes the same thing you stated, and goes on to say:

"Now we can only draw the conclusion that this effect is usually of no
importance for us, but in no way we can conclude that there is no such
thing
like a thermal inductance. An apparent contradiction results between
thermal inductance and the second law of the thermodynamics, which states
the well known fact that entropy is always increasing. By this it is
usually concluded, that a heat flow is directed along the gradient of
temperature. On the other hand, due to the relation (see text) a constant
heat flow can appear at a thermal inductance also if the temperature
difference disappears, which apparently contradicts the statement of the
second law of thermodynamics. The above consideration shows that the
phenomenon of thermal inductance is of importance, if we consider a
high-speed process, for example the heating by short-time laser pulses.
Classical thermodynamics assumes slow changes, so that the system is in a
quasi-stationary status. By inclusion of an additional state variable
(i.e. the flux of energy), it is possible to introduce a definition of
entropy, which is in accordance to the second law of thermodynamic,
whereby the contradiction is eliminated. This theory is call extended
irreversible thermodynamics."
repeat my second post off


I know exactly what you mean and you are right! The best explination I have
heard is that the heat doesn't like the cold water and runs to the other end
to get away.

So if you placed the solid hot bar on two plastic 5 gallon buckets
full of water, then the ensuing stampedes of excited and scared
molecules would run into each other and generate even more heat than
the observed phenomenon? I would think that they would go willingly to
the dark medium.

Sunworshipper wrote:

then the ensuing stampedes of excited and scared molecules would run into
each other and generate even more heat than the observed phenomenon?

Yes, and the bar will melt in the middle!
With this trick you can melt the thickest rods just with two cigarette
lighters and two buckets of ice water.

Nick
--
Motormodelle / Engine Models:
http://www.motor-manufaktur.de
Ellwe 2FB * VTM 87 * DLM-S3a * cubic
more to come ...

On Fri, 26 Aug 2005 15:09:05 -0500, "s.morra"
wrote:

Ladies and Gentlemen, I want to ask you if you have experienced or know of
any stories about a particular phenomenon when quenching a red hot steel rod
in water. I have included repeated posting history below for reference.
One post is from Mr. Kolesnik in mid-2005, followed by my response to that
string when I discovered it. Then my two original posts follow that. If
you know about this phenomenon, please respond to the group here.

repeat Henry Kolesnik post on
I don't know if this is the right place to ask this question, but if it's
not please point me to the correct group.

Back in the fifties I recall heating the end of a 20 inch long piece of 1
inch cold rolled steel bar stock in a blacksmith forge to red hot. On
several occasions, instead of hammering the piece on an anvil I would plunge
it into the water because someone asked me to do something else. On these
occasions I noticed that the end that I was holding would seem to get much
hotter faster when plunged versus when hammering on the piece. For some
reason the heat traveled to the part I was holding faster when plunged
versus being forged. Is there a scientific reason for what happened or has
my memory deceived me?
tnx
repeat Henry Kolesnik post off

my response to Henry's post on
What an interesting and timely account given by Mr. Kolesnik, as I have
experienced the same phenomenon. I recently posted in several physics
newsgroups looking for an explanation after ~20 years of wondering about it.
Responses have been sparse and mostly theoretical guesswork or conjectures
(which I appreciate and consider), but without any experience of the
phenomenon or knowledge of cases (my actual question). One respondent in
sci.physics.research (p.kinsler) suggested that I try asking in an
engineering newsgroup (he also mentioned hearing about "thermal
inertia" being used to describe this phenomenon). I started doing that
today and came across Mr. Kolesnik's account. So I will repeat my post
below after a few comments.

In response to a sci.physics respondent (tadchem, Tom Davidson), I would
like to point out in the account I give below that the temperature
measurement was differential with both hands starting at room temperature.
He is generally right in saying "The human nervous system is a notoriously
unreliable and impossible to calibrate sensor", especially with single-ended
measurements (one hand). But the statement also implies an exaggeration to
the exclusion of trusting what we sense as humans and trusting only modern
test data. I see that Mr. Kolesnik experienced some of the same in his
respondents, but in his case he repeatedly experienced the same phenomenon
(I experienced it once), and neither of us fell of the potato truck
yesterday. True, in modern life it is possible to measure the phenomenon
with electronic instrumentation, and wouldn't that be nice to do. But such
a thing requires some effort and costs, which also in modern times is
generally not done without some chance of a payback on the investment. Such
an experiment might be done when someone with authority over efforts and
costs decides that maybe Mr. Kolesnik and I actually experienced something
interesting, interesting enough to imagine a payback of some kind for their
operation. Until then, the rest of us are stuck with our nervous systems to
observe with our hand (differential is better) the heat spike produced when
a steel rod with a red hot end is quenched. Like Mr. Kolesnik, it isn't the
steam produced.
my response to Henry's post off

repeat my original post on
As an example, from page 34 of
http://web.mit.edu/2.151/www/Handouts/EnPwrFlow.pdf (other references easy

This author needed a thermal inductance to fix a problem with a
formula that was an approximation to begin with. He nowhere proves
the existance of a relationship where temperature is proportiional to
the time derivative of heat flow. He merely describes how such a
thing would behave if there were such a thing, and then how it would
make his math work the way he wants it to.

Others have said they also believe in this phenomonon, but well golly
they were really too busy to actually validate it with
instrumentation.

What *is* proven here, is that faith conquers all -- even
thermodynamics!

The heat moving to the other end is a technique used to heat treat
carbon tool steel tooling such as lathe tool bits. You heat the
working end to cherry red, then plunge the first inch into water, then
remove the piece. The heat from the opposite end that was not quenched
travels back into the quenched end to temper it. On larger pieces
these two steps must be done individually, but on small pieces the
remaining heat is enough to reach the 400 degrees needed for tempering.