Heat and Temperature: Further Practice

Specific heat capacity, latent heat, insulation, and the direction heat always flows.

8 questions, free, marked as you go with a worked explanation on every one.

What this covers

The questions

  1. Sand heats up faster than water when both sit in the same sunlight for the same time. Which property of water explains this difference?
  2. It takes 334 J to melt each gram of ice at 0 degrees Celsius. How many kilojoules does it take to melt 200 g of ice?
  3. A double-pane window has a thin layer of air trapped between two sheets of glass. Why does this trapped air make the window a better insulator than a single pane?
  4. Use the table below, showing how long four different lid materials took to reach 60 degrees Celsius when placed over the same pot of boiling water. Which material is the best insulator?
  5. A copper pot needs 0.39 J to raise the temperature of one gram by one degree Celsius. How many joules does it take to raise a 300 g copper pot by 15 degrees Celsius?
  6. Two identical spoons are placed in the same cup of hot tea, one made of steel and one made of copper, which conducts heat better than steel. After one minute, which spoon handle feels hotter to touch?
  7. A window loses heat at 500 J per second. Adding a storm window cuts that loss by 60 percent. How many joules per second does the window lose after the storm window is added?
  8. Heat always flows, on its own and without any outside energy added, from:

Answer these free