specific heat: Quick Facts

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Facts

Also Known As	specific thermal capacity • specific heat capacity

Photos

A vertical bar chart compares how much the temperature of one gram of various materials rises, in degrees Celsius, when one calorie of heat is added. Gold and silver show the greatest temperature increase, while materials like water and gasoline show the least.

Figure 1: Specific heat in the normal (Cen) and superconducting (Ces) states of a classic superconductor as a function of absolute temperature. The two functions are identical at the transition temperature (Tc) and above Tc.

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Topics

electronic specific heat drop method heat capacity

Key People

Henry Cavendish

Henry Cavendish

British physicist