For now, I still can't believe that "the temperature doesn't depend on the number of atoms in contact with the thermometer".
Aluminium atoms were smaller, thus more numerous, and would counteract the higher kinetic energy of Copper atoms
1) First, there is this sentence, about a modern interpretation of the observation by Joseph Black that water and Iron had different specific heat capacities : "Heat is spread over the molecules. The more numerous the molecules, the less the increase in thermal energy per molecule, thus less kinetic energy and a lower increase in temperature".This seems to be your key misunderstanding. Yes, there are more atoms in 1 kg of Al than 1 kg of Cu, so the specific heat capacity of Al is greater. But the number of atoms that matters is all the atoms in the sample. I ask you again, do you really think that only the atoms in immediate contact with the thermometer give up heat to it? If heat can flow from these atoms to the thermometer, why not to these atoms from those in the adjacent layer (and thence to the thermometer), and so on. Heat flows from the sample to the thermometer (or the other way) until they are at the same temperature, and heat flows within the sample so that the whole sample is at the same temperature.
I can't avoid seeing the thermometer surrounded by molecules or atoms, whose number seems important.
Couple I II Au/Fe 0,28 0,2 Au/Ag 0,56 0,55 Pb/Ag 0,56 0,29 Pt/Ag 0,61 0,605 Cu/Fe 0,83 0,88 Au/Pt 0,93 0,91 Pb/Pt 0,93 0,47 Au/Pb 1 1,9 Cu/Ag 1,7 2,4 Al/Fe 1,9 1,47 Fe/Ag 2,04 2,7 Al/Cu 2,3 1,67 Cu/Pt 2,8 3,94 Cu/Au 3 4,37 Cu/Pb 3 8,34 Fe/Pt 3,35 4,4 Fe/Pb 3,6 9,4 Al/Ag 3,9 4 Al/Pt 6,4 6,6 Al/Au 6,9 7,29 Al/Pb 6,9 13,9 |