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Can the heat capacity be negative

yes
no
It depends

Topic: Heat capacity of a calorimeter  (Read 7951 times)

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Offline sniffinoutthemole

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Heat capacity of a calorimeter
« on: October 03, 2010, 08:16:19 PM »
Okay so my qwater is negative also which is what i think the problem is.
I have 50mL of hot water being added to cold water. The specific heat is 4.18j/Cg. Tmix was calculated at 40.2 and the initial temperature was observed at 42.6. THe average temperature between 24.6 and 60.6 is 42.6.
The formula is Q water= mass x specific heat x (tmix-Tinitial)
the formula for the heat capacity of the calorimeter is qwater/Tmix-Tintial

Is there anyway it being negative makes sense? What do I do if the math supports a negative value?

Online Borek

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Re: Heat capacity of a calorimeter
« Reply #1 on: October 04, 2010, 06:00:50 AM »
Heat capacity is never negative. I guess you are doing something wrong with temperature changes, but your post is too chaotic. Please elaborate what was done during the experiment.
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