Specific heat capacity
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The teaching part (1 min) is free to watch. A free account opens the whole lecture: 3 worked examples, 8 practice questions, 2 real past-paper questions with the answers explained, the mistakes that lose marks, the full-marks tip, a one-card summary and a quick quiz.
What this lecture covers
- Why is the sea so slow to warm up?
- Heat capacity and temperature
- Specific heat capacity
- The equation, three forms
Read the transcript of the teaching part
Last time
Before we start: last time, in Melting, boiling, latent heat and evaporation, you learned these points. Here they are again on one card. Keep them in mind, because today builds on them.
Why is the sea so slow to warm up?
On a sunny day the sand on the beach burns your feet, but the sea is still cool. They get the same sunshine. Yet the sand heats up quickly, and the water heats up slowly. Different materials need different amounts of energy to warm up, and that is specific heat capacity.
Heat capacity and temperature
The energy needed to warm something depends on three things. First, how much of it there is: its mass. Second, how much you want the temperature to rise. Third, what the material is. Water needs a lot of energy. Metals need much less. The material is described by a number called its specific heat capacity.
Specific heat capacity
The specific heat capacity of a substance is the energy needed to raise the temperature of one kilogram of it by one degree Celsius. The symbol is a small c. Its unit is joules per kilogram per degree Celsius. Water has a specific heat capacity of four thousand two hundred joules per kilogram per degree Celsius. So one kilogram of water needs four thousand two hundred joules to warm up by one degree.
The equation, three forms
The energy transferred equals mass times specific heat capacity times the change in temperature. To find the specific heat capacity, divide the energy by the mass and the temperature change. To find the temperature change, divide by mass times c.
How often it comes up
How often Cambridge has asked each part, counted by ExamYard from every past paper in its question bank: Specific heat capacity · Specific heat capacity.
The whole chapter: Thermal Properties and Temperature, Thermal Properties and Temperature.
Chapter 2.2: Thermal properties and temperature
- Thermal expansion 6 min
- Specific heat capacity 6 min
- Melting, boiling, latent heat and evaporation 6 min
Also for O Level Physics 5054
Which topics come up most in O Level Physics 5054 past papers, counted from every paper since 2004.