To create insight into the concept of specific heat and its impact on everyday life, it is essential to outline its details and how it is measured. Specific heat refers to the total energy required to raise one gram of a matter’s temperature by one degree Celsius (or one Kelvin). The SI unit for fixed heat is joules per gram-degree Celsius (J/g°C) (Reddy & Dulikravich, 2019). When a substance with high particular heat is heated, it takes a long time for its temperature to increase since it must absorb numerous heats before its temperature can rise. Likewise, when a substance with high heat energy is cooled, it takes a long time to give off more heat for the temperature to decrease. The thermal energy of a substance can be used to measure its ability to change state. For instance, water requires high fixed heat to change from liquid to vapor. Thus, the water’s definate heat vaporization is the heat required to vaporize its one gram. The specific heat of a matter is a measure of its ability to absorb or release heat and its ability to change state.
Various ways can reveal the thermal energy impacts on individuals’ everyday lives. For instance, fixed heat can depict how long a substance will take to heat up or cool down. The knowledge gained from the information can be applied to determine how long it will take to cook food or to cool down a hot drink (Mahdi et al., 2019). A profound understanding of thermal energy enables one to be informed about how much energy is required to heat or cool a substance, which plays a fundamental role in energy optimization in home heating and cooling systems (Reddy & Dulikravich, 2019). Moreover, specific heat is significant in differentiating the thermal stability of various materials. The data is used to design and select materials for different purposes, such as heat-resistant materials for cookware and insulating materials for clothing. Property-fixed heat can be a differentiating factor between different substances, making it easy to determine the material that best fits a particular purpose.
As mentioned previously, different metals have different specific heats, which causes a variation in the time taken to cook a meal. The definite heat of metal is relevant when choosing a metal for cooking because it affects how quickly it will heat up and how long it will stay hot. Fundamentally, the definite heat of aluminum is huge, which makes it need a higher amount of heat to raise the temperature (Reddy & Dulikravich, 2019). The property makes aluminum preferred for cookware since it heats up quickly and evenly. However, aluminum cools down quickly; thus, it cannot keep food hot for a long time. Copper has a lower fixed heat than aluminum. Due to this reason, copper is often used for pots and pans because it heats up quickly. Similarly, copper cools down quickly, making it not ideal for foods that need to be kept hot for a long time (Deng et al., 2018). On the other hand, steel has a lower specified heat than aluminum and copper. But since steel is not as good at conducting heat as aluminum or copper, so it is not ideal for cookware.
Numerous factors affect seasonal weather and felt temperatures globally. One of those factors is the particular heat of land and water. Remarkably, the heat capacity for water to raise temperature by one degree Celsius is relatively higher than that of land. The difference in thermal energy between land and water affects the felt temperature and seasonal weather in several ways (Reddy & Dulikravich, 2019). Water takes longer to heat up than land due to its higher specific. That is why the ocean is usually cooler than the land in the summer and warmer in the winter. The radiant heat of water affects the formation of weather patterns. When the air is warm, it rises, and when the air is cold, it sinks. Over the ocean, the pattern of air rising and sinking causes a circulation pattern. The circulation pattern helps distribute the heat around the land and affects the weather patterns experienced.
The objectives of conducting research on thermal heat and its impacts on different aspects of everyday life were to determine the specific heat of at least two different metal samples, and observe the relationship between specific heat and rate of temperature change. Overall, it can be concluded that radiative heat is an essential concept in many fields. In the kitchen, definite heat is used for cooking food evenly. In the medical field, specific heat is used to maintain the patient body temperature. In the field of chemistry, heat helps in calculating the energy that would be needed to lower or raise the temperature of an object. Without a thorough understanding of heat energy, many aspects of our lives would be much more difficult. Thus, the research played a crucial role in equipping learners with knowledge relevant to their fields of their careers.
References
Deng, Y., Wang, S., Bai, X., Tian, Y., Wu, L., Xiao, J.,… & Qian, Q. (2018). Relationship among land surface temperature and LUCC, NDVI in typical karst area. Scientific Reports, 8(1), 1-12.
Junior, J. B. P., & Soares, A. A. (2021). Studying the specific heat of sand with an Arduino board. Physics Education, 56(4), 045016.
Mahdi, J. M., Lohrasbi, S., & Nsofor, E. C. (2019). Hybrid heat transfer enhancement for latent-heat thermal energy storage systems: A review.International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 137, 630-649.
Reddy, S. R., & Dulikravich, G. S. (2019). Simultaneous determination of spatially varying thermal conductivity and specific heat using boundary temperature measurements. Inverse Problems in Science and Engineering, 27(11), 1635-1649.