What physical properties, other than specific heat could you use to help you identify the sample(s) used in this experiment?
3 answers
What experiment? What kind of sample? Specific heat tells me you must have been heating/cooling something. How about density. That will identify many metals and is a physcal property.
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Edit: The experiment was to heat a certain metal in boiling water and take the temperature. Next we moved it into a makeshift calorimeter and found the specific heat of the metal. I ended up looking up the specific heat of the metal and I'm confident the metal we experimented with is aluminum.
Of course this is not what the question was asking. What properties could we have measured realistically in the experiment that would have let us know that?
Edit: The experiment was to heat a certain metal in boiling water and take the temperature. Next we moved it into a makeshift calorimeter and found the specific heat of the metal. I ended up looking up the specific heat of the metal and I'm confident the metal we experimented with is aluminum.
Of course this is not what the question was asking. What properties could we have measured realistically in the experiment that would have let us know that?
I don't think so. I think the question is asking what physical property could you have measured that would help you determine the identity of the metal. Density? You would have had to look that up, too, in tables. There is no way you can get the Al metal to shout at you, "Hey, I'm aluminum". You must measure some property, then look up in a set of tables to find it.
2 answers