Question

A cold piece of aluminum and a hot piece of copper have the same masses. The specific heat capacity of alumin?

A cold piece of aluminum and a hot piece of copper have the same masses. The specific heat capacity of aluminum is more than double that of copper. If the aluminum and the copper are put in thermal contact, which object experiences the greater temperature change during the time the system takes to reach thermal equilibrium? Assume an isolated system consisting of only the two pieces of metals. ok, this is confusing.. i thought heat lost and heat gained are always equal to each other??

Answer 1

Yes, heat lost and heat gained are equal to each other, but the temperature that the change in temperature are different.

Look, heat exchange = m*C*temperature change.
Where m is mass and C is specific heat.

If m are the same

You can write

heat gained by metal 1 = C of metal 1 * temperature increase

heat lost by metal 2 = C of metal 2 * temperature decrease

So, C of metal 1 * temperature increase = C of metal 2 * temperature decrease.

Then the metal with the lower C will experience a bigger change of temperature.

Please, let me know if this helped you.