A low-cost method for measuring the specific heat of aluminium

摘要

One of the standard experiments in basic thermodynamics is the determination of the specific heat of solids and liquids using a water calorimeter. Recently, the measurement of the specific heat of aluminium without the use of a calorimeter has been proposed, where the cooling curves of the systems container/water and container/water/sample are analysed. Here we discuss an application of this method that simplifies Newton's law of cooling. In spite of the use of only low-cost instruments, this application yields consistent results in determining the specific heat of aluminium