Wow, somebody agrees with me
That is a meaningless agreement! Compared to the internal
resistance (see below for a nice round figure), the load
resistance provided by a set of pliers will not remain low for
very long. The heat dissipated internally to the battery will
be dispersed (granted at a relatively slow rate) to the entire
battery, and will have relatively small effect. The
significantly higher heat dissipated in the pliers does not have
a large mass to absorb it, and will quickly result in a *very*
*large* temperature rise for the pliers.
In essence, before the battery gets warm, you'll burn your
hands, which will cause your grip on the pliers to loosen,
allowing higher resistance and possibly even a loss of
continuity. That would result in arcing and a possible
explosion added to the burnt hands.
The Exide site says their ORB78DT84 auto battery can deliver 770
"cold cranking amps" for 30 seconds at 0 F at 1.2 volts per cell,
ie 7.2 volts at the terminals. That makes the internal resistance
about (12-7.2)/770 = 0.00623 ohms... 770^2x0.00623x30/3600x3.412
= 105 Btu, which might warm the battery up to 0+105/15 = 7 F...
7 degrees at 0F is of no significance, even if that were an
accurate calculation. But it isn't, because that heat would
be distributed throughout the large mass of the battery, not
some unit sized portion of it (which is assumed by that faulty
equation).
