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An object with a mass of #200 g# is dropped into #300 mL# of water at #0^@C#. If the object cools by #72 ^@C# and the water warms by #3 ^@C#, what is the specific heat of the material that the object is made of?

Answer 1

Emily Abbate

The specific heat is #=0.26 kJkg^-1K^-1#

The hot object transfers its heat to the cold water.

For the cold water, # Delta T_w=3ºC#

For the hot object #DeltaT_o=72ºC#

# m_o C_o (DeltaT_o) = m_w C_w (DeltaT_w)#

The specific heat of water #C_w=4.186kJkg^-1K^-1#

Let, #C_o# be the specific heat of the object

The mass of the object is #m_o=0.200kg#

The mass of the water is #m_w=0.300kg#

#0.2*C_o*72=0.3*4.186*3#

#C_0=(0.3*4.186*3)/(0.2*72)#

#=0.26 kJkg^-1K^-1#

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Answer 2

Adrian Ayala

The specific heat of the material is approximately 0.15 J/g°C.

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Answer from HIX Tutor

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.