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The temperature of a sample of water changes from 10°C to 20°C when the water absorbs 100 calories of heat. What is the mass of the sample?

1 Answer

3 votes

Answer:

10 g

Step-by-step explanation:

Right from the start, just by inspecting the values given, you can say that the answer will be

10 g

.

Now, here's what that is the case.

As you know, a substance's specific heat tells you how much heat is needed to increase the temperature of

1 g

of that substance by

1

C

.

Water has a specific heat of approximately

4.18

J

g

C

. This tells you that in order to increase the temperature of

1 g

of water by

1

C

, you need to provide

4.18 J

of heat.

Now, how much heat would be required to increase the temperature of

1 g

of water by

10

C

?

Well, you'd need

4.18 J

to increase it by

1

C

, another

4.18 J

to increase it by another

1

C

, and so on. This means that you'd need

4.18 J

×

10

=

41.8 J

to increase the temperature of

1 g

of water by

10

C

.

Now look at the value given to you. If you need

41.8 J

to increase the temperature of

1 g

of water by

10

C

, what mass of water would require

10

times as much heat to increase its temperature by

10

C

?

1 g

×

10

=

10 g

And that's your answer.

Mathematically, you can calculate this by using the equation

q

=

m

c

Δ

T

, where

q

- heat absorbed/lost

m

- the mass of the sample

c

- the specific heat of the substance

Δ

T

- the change in temperature, defined as final temperature minus initial temperature

Plug in your values to get

418

J

=

m

4.18

J

g

C

(

20

10

)

C

m

=

418

4.18

10

=

10 g

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