PHYSICS LAB MANUALS

Phase Change – Latent Heat

  1. Assume that 0.05 grams of water evaporated from your calorimeter during your specific heat measurement. Use your experimental value for the latent heat of condensation of water to estimate the heat that would have been consumed by this evaporation.
  2. Is evaporation likely to have been a significant source of error in this experiment? Would evaporation tend to make your experimental value for the specific heat too high or too low?
  3. Explain why burns caused by steam at 100°C are more serious than those caused by an equal mass of boiling water at the same temperature.
  4. How is the latent heat of water used in the cooling of our bodies?