Diagram to represent heat capacity?

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Homework Help Overview

The discussion revolves around the concept of heat capacity, specifically comparing the specific heat capacity of motor oil and water. Participants are tasked with creating a diagram to visually represent this concept as part of their experiment write-ups.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory, Conceptual clarification, Problem interpretation

Approaches and Questions Raised

  • Participants explore how to effectively illustrate the differences in specific heat capacity between materials. There are suggestions to use graphs to represent specific heat values, and questions about the nature of the diagram needed to convey the underlying principles of heat capacity.

Discussion Status

The discussion is ongoing, with participants sharing ideas about the type of diagram that would be appropriate. Some participants express uncertainty about the relationship between heat capacity and energy storage, prompting further inquiry into the correct definitions and concepts.

Contextual Notes

Participants are under the constraint of needing to include diagrams and graphs in their experiment write-ups as mandated by their teacher. There is also a mention of a misunderstanding regarding the relationship between heat capacity and energy storage mechanisms.

Crushgear64
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1. How do I draw a diagram to demonstrate why motor oil has a higher specific heat capacity than water?
 
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what you can do is just draw graphs of specific heat of different materials, and hence then through it represent that above ...
 
Zubeen said:
what you can do is just draw graphs of specific heat of different materials, and hence then through it represent that above ...

Our teacher decided that we need a diagram to go along with every experiment write up, as well as a graph.
 
Crushgear64 said:
Our teacher decided that we need a diagram to go along with every experiment write up, as well as a graph.

What kind of a diagram?
 
dimension10 said:
What kind of a diagram?

Just a simple diagram to demonstrate what is happening/why. I know the heat capacity is related to the ability of the material to store the heat energy as potential energy rather than kinetic energy, but I'm not sure how to illustrate it.
 
Crushgear64 said:
I know the heat capacity is related to the ability of the material to store the heat energy as potential energy rather than kinetic energy

No, that's false.
 
dimension10 said:
No, that's false.

Can you explain what actually determines it then?
 
Crushgear64 said:
Can you explain what actually determines it then?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_capacity

"Heat capacity (usually denoted by a capital C, often with subscripts), or thermal capacity, is the measurable physical quantity that characterizes the amount of heat required to change a substance's temperature by a given amount."
 

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