Final answer:
Ice will reduce the temperature of the metal more than water due to ice's lower specific heat capacity, allowing it to change temperature more quickly for the same amount of heat transfer from the metal.
Step-by-step explanation:
When a hot piece of metal is placed in ice or cold water, the heat transfer will be determined by the specific heat capacity of the substances involved. The specific heat of a substance is the amount of heat required to change the temperature of one gram of the substance by one degree Celsius. Ice would reduce the temperature of the metal more significantly than water because ice has a lower specific heat than water, meaning it requires less heat to change its temperature. Therefore, the metal would lose heat more rapidly to the ice, which would gain temperature more quickly for the same amount of heat transfer.
Additionally, according to the principle of conservation of energy and assuming perfect heat transfer and no loss to the surroundings, the heat lost by the hot metal is equal to the heat gained by the water or ice. This principle is applied in heat transfer calculations, such as calculating the change in temperature of a substance when it absorbs or loses a specific amount of heat. In practice, for every unit of temperature drop in the metal, there would be a smaller unit of temperature rise in the water because of the larger specific heat capacity of water. The amount of heat required to cause a temperature change depends on the mass and the specific heat of the substances involved.