This is about running your air conditioner, charging your Tesla, and molding your kitchen sink, not heating homes. Think Carnot efficiency, power density, supercritical steam, and shutting down gas pipelines.
And the temperature to destroy steel under the immense mechanical stress of a drill string is surprisingly modest. Jet fuel can’t melt steel beams, but softening them is enough.
Thermal mass and thermal conductivity also play a role in this example. Two more reasons a wooden ladder is better in this scenario. For ladders at the same temperature, the aluminum one would conduct more thermal energy, quicker, into a user's hand then a Wooden one. Making a wooden one more usable for longer in this scenario even though the aluminum one would technically last longer.
This is why wooden sauna seats work well, aluminum seats in the sauna would not go over so well.
Lots to consider when solving thermal problems, it's not just about turning up the dial to be able to withstand more heat. Sometimes it's about the nuance of moving the heat efficiently and putting it where it's wanted, and not where it isnt.
Wood has about the same specific heat as aluminum, but a wooden ladder weighs much more, so a wooden ladder at the same temperature contains much more sensible heat to eventually conduct into the user's hand.
I looked it up. Actually wood had about twice the specific heat as aluminum. So I must revise my original comment to remove specific heat as a driving factor. This leaves only thermal conductivity. A wood ladder would have more heat to give than an aluminum one, but it still is able to give it much slower, making it ok to touch for longer.
My general rule is that everything is 1 J/g/K except water, which is 4.2. It's obviously not true, but almost always within a factor of 2, and 1 is an especially easy number to multiply and divide by.
Reading your first paragraph, I was thinking "water. the answer is always water", when it comes to estimating the properties of life-stuff vs everything-else-stuff within a factor of 2. Not obviously, of course, but it's just such a powerful heuristic.
Reading your second paragraph, I see you're familiar with the principle, and added a good heuristic to my stockpile, thank you.
And the temperature to destroy steel under the immense mechanical stress of a drill string is surprisingly modest. Jet fuel can’t melt steel beams, but softening them is enough.