Silver Is an Excellent conductor of electricity - maybe heat as well...I will add it to my "find an answer" list
Yeah, and the problem is this: you're not just conducting heat from the air to the ice, you're cooling down your piece of metal. In fact, I expect any melting you measure comes from cooling the metal down to the temperature of the ice. (Try it with silver and copper coins that are already cooled down to 0, and see if you can measure a difference!) Silver has slightly better thermal conductivity (~5%) than copper, but copper has higher specific heat, which means it'll absorb more energy while you're cooling it down. I'd need to run controlled experiments, but I wonder if copper wouldn't actually melt the ice more quickly than silver. (Edited to fix direction of heat transfer , thanks @Tlberg...)
So the next coin show buy a generic silver and copper round. Sand off the surface with a belt sander to make both equally flat (and this will have some tooth to it). Place in the freezer... wait Weigh several ice cubes to find pairs of equal weight Place an ice cube on both and measure melt times. Repeat multiple trials... Present mean, median and standard deviation... Inquiring minds want to know!
I have a hs understanding of statistics - but you lost me right after "Sand" a silver round..I'm sure the gov paid for that info already
Oh for pity's sake. Fill out the correct federal government forms to apply for a federal grant. You get paid to conduct all the metal and ice tests your heart desires and with grants you don't have to pay back the funds. Just publish the test results in 5 years.
(wouldn't the results be more accurate if both were polished? Inquiring minds... Sorry - back to the coated Morgan)
When you say 'coated' do you mean fake? How can we tell if it is coated? You can see the surface lines that show harsh cleaning. But, wouldn't the detail be distorted if it had some kind of coating on it?