Question #b29dc

1 Answer
Feb 2, 2016

DeltaT = 38^@"C"

Explanation:

The key to understanding this type of problems lies with the substance's specific heat.

For a given substance, its specific heat will tell you how much heat is needed in order to increase the mass of "1 g" of that substance by 1^@"C".

In your case, the specific heat of gold is said to be

c = 0.128"J"/("g" ""^@"C")

This tells you that you need "0.128 J" of heat for every gram of the sample and for every 1^@"C"" increase in its temperature!

So, for example, your sample of gold is said to have a mass of "20 g". What if we wanted to increase the temperature of this sample by just 1^@"C"?

Well, since you need "0.128 J" for every gram, and since you only want to increase its temperature by 1^@C", it follows that you'd need

20 xx "0.128 J" = "2.56 J"

But you ended up using "96 J", which means that the difference between this value and the value given to you went into increasing the sample's temperature!

You can say that

x xx "2.56 J" = "96 J"

Here x represents the increase in temperature produced by adding that extra heat to the sample. This means that you have

x = 96/2.56 = 37.5

The temperature of the coin increased by 37.5^@"C".

You actually have an equation that you can use for such problems

color(blue)(q = m * c * DeltaT)" ", where

q - the amount of heat added / removed
m - the mass of the sample
c - the specific heat of the substance
DeltaT - the change in temperature

Plugging your values into this equation will once again give you

DeltaT = q/(m * c)

DeltaT = (96 color(red)(cancel(color(black)("J"))))/(20 color(red)(cancel(color(black)("g"))) * 0.128color(red)(cancel(color(black)("J")))/(color(red)(cancel(color(black)("g"))) ""^@"C")) = 37.5^@"C"

I'll leave the answer rounded to two sig figs

DeltaT = color(green)(38^@"C")