Thermal conductivity

Thermal conductivity (k) is “the rate at which heat passes through a specified material,
expressed as the amount of heat that flows per unit time through a unit area with a
temperature gradient of one degree per unit distance,” according to the Oxford
Dictionary. The unit for k is watts (W) per meter (m) per kelvin (K). Values of k for
metals such as copper and silver are relatively high at 401 and 428 W/m·K,
respectively. This property makes these materials useful for automobile radiators and
cooling fins for computer chips because they can carry away heat quickly and exchange
it with the environment. The highest value of k for any natural substance is diamond at
2,200 W/m·K.
Other materials are useful because they are extremely poor conductors of heat; this
property is referred to as thermal resistance, or R-value, which describes the rate at
which heat is transmitted through the material. These materials, such as rock wool,
goose down and Styrofoam, are used for insulation in exterior building walls, winter
coats and thermal coffee mugs. R-value is given in units of square feet times degrees
Fahrenheit times hours per British thermal unit (ft2·°F·h/Btu) for a 1-inch-thick slab.
Newton's Law of Cooling
In 1701, Sir Isaac Newton first stated his Law of Cooling in a short article titled "Scala
graduum Caloris" ("A Scale of the Degrees of Heat") in the Philosophical Transactions of
the Royal Society. Newton's statement of the law translates from the original Latin as,
"the excess of the degrees of the heat ... were in geometrical progression when the
times are in an arithmetical progression." Worcester Polytechnic Institute gives a more
modern version of the law as "the rate of change of temperature is proportional to the
difference between the temperature of the object and that of the surrounding
environment."
This results in an exponential decay in the temperature difference. For example, if a
warm object is placed in a cold bath, within a certain length of time, the difference in
their temperatures will decrease by half. Then in that same length of time, the
remaining difference will again decrease by half. This repeated halving of the
temperature difference will continue at equal time intervals until it becomes too small to
measure.