Question

which contains a greater amount of thermal energy an ice cube or a cup of hot coffee. Explain Why ?

Answer 1

Answer : cup of hot coffee

lets assume the temperature of ice cube about -20C. most of the ice cube is water (in form of ice) and most of the coffee is water, so you can take the heat capacities of them to be the same per unit volume. -20C is 251K i think. the coffee is maybe 90C, or 361K.

thermal energy=mcT. ignore c since they are so similar for them. take m=1 for the coffee and m=1 for the ice cube.
ice cube energy is 1(251) whilst the coffees is 1(361).
while i made up the figures for mass and the mass of iceberg is compared to the coffee, you can clearly see that the same mass of the ice cube easily makes up for its lower temperature in terms of thermal energy.