Question

Find the heat capacity of a block of unknown material. You will immerse the block, with its temperature known, into a known quantity of water, which is at a very different temperature than the block. After they reach equilibrium, they will be at the same final temperature. From the change of temperature of both, calculate the block's heat capacity.

NOTE: You can heat up or cool the block using hot water or ice water

HOW WILL I DO THIS ? ?? ? ? explain please physics wizards of chegg

Answer 1

Yes, this method is pretty common to find the specific heat of unknown material

the concept used here is that the metal will give up some heat when immersed in water and water will gain that heat. This means temperature of metal will decrease and temperature of water will increase. This increase / decrease will continue till a final equilibrium temperature is achieved

Let T be that equilibrium temperature

Let c be the specific heat of unknown metal

Let T' be the initial temperature of material and T'' be the initial temperature of water.

then

heat lost = heat gained

m _material * c * T_material = m_water * c_water * T_water

m _material * c * ( T' - T) = m_water * c_water * ( T'' - T)

c = m_water * c_water * ( T'' - T) / m _material * ( T' - T)

This way you can find the specific heat of any unknown material

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c_water is known as 4186 J/ kg ^oC