Specific Heat Pre Lab Flying Freddie Spooner 2013 Tri-Valley Cannonball Champion Specific Heat Different substances require different amounts of heat to change their temperature. In general the specific heat of a substance indicates how hard something is to heat up or cool down. Scientifically speaking the specific heat is the amount of heat required to change the temperature of 1 gram of a substance by 1C. Which substance is the hardest to heat up or cool down? Importance of Waters High Specific Heat Maintenance of Body Temperature Importance of Waters High Specific Heat Temperature fluctuations that permit life. Importance of Waters High Specific Heat Heat Storage on a Larger Scale. Today you will determine the specific heat of a metal. How can we determine experimentally the specific heat of this metal? Lead Look to the units. They will lead you to the answer. J/g C We must determine three things to find the specific heat? Joules (Energy) Grams (mass) C (temperature change) What measurements of this metal are needed to find its specific heat? Lead Hidden Slide Heat cannot be measured. Heat must be calculated H = mTC p Today you will use the high specific heat capacity of water to help us determine the specific heat of a metal. How will we do this? C . How Do We Use the Measurements Below to Determine the Specific Heat of the Metal? 100.0C H = mTC p 100.0C p H Metals H water = mTC p = (50.00g)(6.8C)(4.184 J/g C) = J = 1400J 100.0C What does this answer represent? H water = H metal = 1400J We can now find the Cp of the metal 100.0C Calculate the Percent Error of our specific heat measurement. Percentage Error You will experimentally determine the specific heat of Aluminum 0.90