Specific Heat, from the OnRamps Lab 8 worksheet. Drop a mystery metal into water, measure the temperatures, and work out its specific heat with a 95% confidence interval. Every run gives a new metal and new, realistic data.
Goal: determine the specific heat c of an unknown metal. Heat the metal to a known temperature, put it in water in a Styrofoam cup, and use "heat lost by the metal = heat gained by the water" (or the reverse if the metal starts cold).
Choose where the metal gets its known starting temperature. The procedure says boiling water, ice water, or room-temperature water all work, as long as you know the temperature. On the real worksheet you list the materials, the set-up (an annotated sketch), the data to collect, the sources of uncertainty and how you'll analyze the data.
Each trial uses fresh water and re-heats (or re-cools) the same sample. Readings have realistic scatter. Changing a slider starts over with the same metal.
Fill in each box. A box turns green when you're within 2%. Use magnitudes (positive ΔT values), cw = 4186 J/(kg·°C), and convert grams to kilograms.
Run at least 3 trials to unlock the analysis.
Use the c values from your table, as the worksheet does. Mean and CI boxes allow 2%; s and Δx allow 3%, since rounding adds up.
| Quantity | Your value, J/(kg·°C) |
|---|
Look at the sample description above (color, how heavy it feels, magnet test). Then check your number against the table.
Values from the OpenStax College Physics specific heat table (brass is a typical handbook value).