What is mean by specific heat capacity ? [OR Define specific heat capacity.] How will you prove experimentally that different substances have different specific heat capacities ?

Explanation

The amount of heat energy required to raise the temperature of a unit mass of an object by `1^(@)C ` is called the specific heat capacity of that object.
Material `:` A tray with thick laywer of wax, solid spheres of iron, lead and copper of equal mass, burner or spirit lamp, large beaker.
Procedure `:`
(1) Take three spheres of iron, copper and lead of equal mass.
(2) Put all the three spheres in boiling water in the beaker for some time.

(3) Take the three sphere out of water. All the spheres will be at temperature `100^(@)C `. Put them immediately on the thick slab of wax.
(4) Note, the depth that each of the sphere goes into the wax.
The sphere which absorbs more heat from the water will give more heat to wax. More wax will thus melt and the sphere will go deeper in the wax. It can be observed that the iron sphere goes deepest into the wax. Lead sphere goes the least and copper sphere goes to intermediate depth.This shows that for equal rise in temperature , the three spheres have absorbed different amounts of heat. This means the property which determines the amount of heat absorbed by a sphere is different for the three spheres. This is property is called the specific heat capacity.