Final answer:
The specific heat of a metal can be calculated using the energy transfer during thermal equilibrium. By equating the energy lost by the metal to the energy gained by water, the specific heat is determined with the mass and temperature changes of both substances.
Step-by-step explanation:
To calculate the specific heat of a metal using thermal equilibrium principles, we apply the concept that energy lost by the hot metal is equal to the energy gained by the water when both substances reach the same final temperature. The formula for specific heat c is c = (mwater × cwater × (Tfinal - Tinitial water)) / (mmetal × (Tinitial metal - Tfinal)). Using the given information that 55.4 g of metal is initially at 98.39°C and is placed into 51.84 g of water at 18.76°C, both reaching a final temperature of 30.27°C, and knowing the specific heat of water to be 4.184 J/(g°C), we can find the specific heat of the metal.
To calculate the specific heat of the metal, we can use the formula:qwater + qmetal = 0where qwater is the heat gained by the water and qmetal is the heat lost by the metal.Using the equation:qwater = mwater * cwater * ΔTwaterwhere mwater is the mass of water, cwater is the specific heat capacity of water, and ΔTwater is the change in temperature of the water.We can rearrange the equation to solve for the specific heat of the metal:cmetal = -qwater / (mmetal * ΔTmetal)Substituting the given values into the equation, we can calculate the specific heat of the metal.