Specific Heat Capacity

What is Specific Heat Capacity?

The amount of heat energy required to raise the temperature of a unit mass of a substance by one degree. Water's value is unusually high compared to most materials, which is why large bodies of water heat and cool far more slowly than land and moderate the climate around them.

The five clues

Engineerdle #9 described Specific Heat Capacity with five clues, revealed one at a time from hardest to most direct. Each clue points at a different property of the concept.

1. 01A property that decides how 'stubborn' a material is about changing temperature.
2. 02Water has an unusually high value, which is why oceans moderate climate.
3. 03Metals generally have low values — they heat up and cool down quickly.
4. 04It's quoted per unit mass, in joules per kilogram-kelvin.
5. 05The amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of one unit of mass by one degree.

More Thermodynamics concepts

• Triple PointPuzzle #52
• Isentropic ProcessPuzzle #44
• EntropyPuzzle #39
• Adiabatic ProcessPuzzle #34
• Latent HeatPuzzle #14
• First Law of ThermodynamicsPuzzle #4