- Why was the calorimeter insulated? In the set of apparatus , the little bottle inside is made of aluminium and the bottle is surrounded by the foam and the plastic cylinder-shaped equipment. Since the plastic and foam both can effectively avoid the heat from losing, the calorimeter can be insulated.
- Why do you think the the heating apparatus was coiled? (wound in circles). Because it can make the speed of the heat passing through slower, in order to make the temperature not to goes up so fast.
- Why do you think the vessel we held the water in was made of aluminium (Al) and not some other material. Because differ from other metal, aluminium has a very good hermal conductivity, which can make the experiment more accurate since the temperature of the aluminium bottle would affect the change of water temperature so little.
- If you had to pick another material to make the vessel out of what would it be? and why? I would use copper. Because it also has a good hermal conductivity that could make the experiment more accurate.
- Would you expect the value we measure for the SHC of water be exactly 4200 J / kg / K? Justify your answer. I wouldn't expect the value we measure for the SHC of water be exactly 4200J/kg/K. Because even though we keep all our apparatus settled perfectly, there is still some heat that will miss all the way since the apparatus is not completely sealed. Our group get the capacity of water by c=Q/m△θ. Since Q=IUT=1.5A*3V*7.47*60s=2016.9J, we get the Q. Then from the equation I wrote above, c=2016.9J/ (167.5-30.1) x10^-3kg*2K=7339.52J/kg (K). So we can see that the result we get is a way too different from the standard one.