In his interesting and informative book "Is That a Fact?," Joe Schwarcz avers that pigs do not sweat and the saying "sweating like a pig" originates in iron smelting. Oblong pieces of hot iron, with a fancied resemblance to a sow with piglets, cool in sand to the dew point of the surrounding air, and hence water condenses on…

An Internet search for why objects, especially humans, cool more rapidly in water than in air, both at the same temperature, and by how much, yields off-the-cuff answers unsupported by experiment or analysis. To answer these questions in depth requires a smattering of engineering heat transfer, including radiative transfer, and the different…