Nov. 26-30

The center topic discussed this week was on specific heat. Previously, we learned that heat is the energy, whereas energy is just energy, and the amount of it dictates what the temperature is.

But, specific heat is a new term this week. So, what is specific heat? First, to differentiate between heat and specific heat, specific heat is not the transfer of energy. Heat is.

My process of learning what specific heat went like this. I was asked what the meaning of the formula for specific heat is. But, I didn't exactly know that it was the formula for it, but I intuitively assumed, partially erroneous though, that it had to do with the amount of heat associated with the amount of joules (Q) affecting the change in temperature (showed by Δ temperature in ºC) in a substance with a certain mass (m).

Although I had the general concept down, I erred with the word heat. Heat doesn't directly affect temperature. Thus, I learned that heat itself is just an entity of the transferring of energy. Although it affects the temperature to some degree, it doesn't necessarily affect it. What affects it the most is the energy itself. Thus, I coined that heat is the means to the energy, the energy the cause, and the temperature the ends.

In class, I learned that specific heat is the amount of change that is required to change the temperature of    1 gram by 1ºC. I also learned that specific heat=energy/(mass x Δ temperature), and specific heat=Joules (J)/(grams x ºC).

This week, I reviewed the degree of hotness (temperature) and quantity of hotness (heat). The question I had to answer was which temperature increased the temperature of the water more? The 50ºC 25g water or the 100ªC 5g water?

This graph shows the Triple Point of water.
The triple point is the point where a substance
is in between all three states of matter.

To figure out which one had more heat, I considered which one had a higher temperature, since the amount of energy and heat were directly related. Since the 5g water at 100ºC had a higher temperature than the other water, I though that this would have the greater quantity of hotness. However, I also  thought that to understand how the different temperatures affected the temperature change of water, the masses of each of the two waters seemed to play a factor in temperature change. Since the 25g water had greater mass, I thought that it had greater energy since there were more 5x more particles in the water than in the 5g water. Although the temperature in 5g water is hotter, it would take more energy for the particles to move in 25g since there is a greater mass. Thus, the greater the mass, the greater the temperature change is.

I found out that when I learned what specific heat is, I was correct in my reasoning. With specific heat, I realized that the greater the mass, the greater the amount of energy used to increase temperature change with a larger mass. Thus, I then thought of a hypothetical situation where I had to measure the specific heat of each of the two waters using the same temperatures and masses. I then made up a certain amount of joules using x for both. Since both their specific heats were 4.18 J/gºC, I was correct in assuming that the value of energy had to be found out for both waters.

So, with water 1– 4.18 x 25g x 50ºC, and then with water 2– 4.18 x 100ºC x 5g. As I made my calculations, I was correct in hypothesizing that water 1 had greater amount of energy. Thus, it has more mass as well as the amount of particles. I also noticed that water 1 had greater volume than water 2 since the amount of particles in water 1 took up more space with a greater mass than water 2.

I also learned this week about graphing the change in states of matter: from solid to liquid, solid to gas, etc. I then learned that two factors affected the changed states of matter: pressure (atm) and temperature (ºC). So, I then considered, that if there were enough pressure, water could change from solid to gas skipping liquid state, and CO2 from solid to liquid skipping gas state. I observed that the closer it gets to the boiling point (100ºC), the more likely an ice cube is going to evaporate into water and skip the liquid state change. Although I theorized that substances can skip states of matter, I now understand that pressure and temperature dictate this, so it has furthered my understanding of their direct relationship. Otherwise, it wouldn't make sense if CO2 skipped liquid state because the pressure was greater and the temperature was less, and vice versa.