Answer to Question #78197 in General Chemistry for Chloe Lozano

Question

The specific heat of plastic is 50 times greater than the specific heat of lead, 10 times greater than the specific heat of stone, and 1.5 times greater than the specific heat of water. If the samples of plastic, lead, stone, and water have identical masses and identical starting temperatures, and are given identical increases in energy of 1,000 J, which sample will end up with the highest temperature?

A. plastic
B. lead
C. stone
D. water
E. None of the Above

Answer 1

Specific heat basically means how much heat is needed to heat something up by 1 degree Celsius. If the specific heat of plastic is 50 times larger than the specific heat of lead, it means that it takes much more heat for plastic to raise 1 degree Celsius. Since lead has such a low specific heat, (meaning it heats up really easy), the answer is lead.

B. lead