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A piece of metal is heated to 250 degrees then placed in a bucket of water with an initial temperature of 15 degrees. After 10 minutes, the system reaches a point of thermal equilibrium. The water is now 22 degrees. Which of the following is the most likely temperature of the piece of metal?

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Answer: 22 degrees

Explanation:

Most of the information in this question is put there to throw you off- the only important piece of information here is the final temperature of the water.

In a system of say 2, like in this example, whichever object has more energy in the form of heat will transfer that heat to the object with lesser heat if there is an available path to transfer heat between them. Once the two objects are at the same temperature, however, heat can not be transferred from one to another since neither object has more heat than the other to transfer- this is thermal equilibrium.

This question tells us that the system is at thermal equilibrium- when both objects are at the same temperature. Given the temperature of one object, the water, we then know the other object, the metal is the same temperature.

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