Question

The handles of cooking vessels are covered with plastics or wood because:
(A) They are beautiful.
(B) It is customary.
(B) They are good conductors of heat.
(D) They are bad conductors of heat.

Answer 1

Hint: All the materials are generally classified into conductors and the insulators. If the material that allows the heat and electricity to pass through are called conductors. The insulators are the nonconductors of the electricity and heat. Both of the materials have vast application in the day to day life.

Complete step by step by solution:
In the kitchen, all the vessels that are used for the purpose of the cooking are all metals like stainless steel, aluminum, copper etc. This is because the conductors allow the passage of heat through them. When these vessels are kept in heat or electric microwave inductions, the heat or the electric current pass through them, and makes it heated.

This increase in temperature helps in evaporating out the water molecules in the food, and makes the food cooked. But when these vessels are to be lifted or kept, they need to be held by hands, this may hurt due to the high heat. So the handles are made up of nonconductors like plastics or wood, because they do not conduct heat from the vessel conductors and prevent them from hurting.

Thus the option (D) is correct.

Note: The nonconductors are also called as insulators. Mostly all the types of nonmetals are insulators except graphite which is the good conductor of the heat. Among metals, the bismuth and the tungsten are the poor conductors of electricity.