when a 18.5g piece of copper originally at 99.5°C is placed in 58.5g of water at 24.0°C, the temperature of the water rises to 26.1°C. If the specific heat of water is 4.180J/(g.°C), calculate the specific heat of copper.Please help me. I tried using the specific heat formula ( specific heat=heat transferred/mass x temperature change). but, when I do it, it doesnt come out right. What am I doing wrong?
Don't know if I'm too late, but better late than never right? Anyway, you're doing it wrong because you aren't given the heat transfered for the copper. So your equation (specific heat=heat transferred/mass x temperature change) cannot work. Instead set up two equations, one for the water and one for the copper where the combined heat transferred is zero. Heat transferred for system = heat transferred for (copper + water) Q = m?c?ΔT? + m?c?ΔT? 0 = [(18.5)c?(-73.4)] + [(58.5)(4.180)(2.1)] 0 = -1357.9c? + 513.513 c? = -513.513 / -1357.9 c? = 0.378167 J/(g*°C) Specific heat of copper in solid form is about 0.385 J/(g*°C) according to Wikipedia. So this is pretty close.
