Question

A scientist took an iron rod and a wooden rod and wrapped each of them in a piece of paper. These were then heated as shown below. It was found that the paper around the metal rod does not burn whereas the one around the wooden rod catches fire. Can you explain why?
figure

Answer 1

Wood is a bad conductor of heat, whereas a metal is a good conductor of heat. When paper wrapped around a metal rod is heated, its heat energy is readily trapped by the metal rod, which prevents the temperature of paper to rise and so the paper does not catch fire. But when the paper wrapped around a wooden rod is heated, it gets heated up without distributing its heat to the rod, which increases the temperature of paper and the paper burns.