which one of the following materials would take the longest to raise its temperature?

Question

a water
b basalt
c iron
d lead

Answer 1

Assuming that they have equal masses, it would be whichever material has the highest specific heat, because that defines how much heat energy is required to increase a unit mass of material by a unit temperature. Water is known for having a very high specific heat, so it could be that, but you should really look up the specific heat (or "specific heat capacity") for all of these materials in your text book.

Answer 2

Assuming you're talking about the same mass of each, then it would take water the longest, because it has the highest specific heat. As for second place on this list, it's hard to say -- iron and lead are pretty close together, and basalt can vary in composition, but can be close to iron and lead as well, since it's mostly silica (in the form of SiO2) and alumina (Al2O3, I believe)

Answer 3

How much energy (and therefore how long it takes) to raise something in temperature is called specific heat.

Water (as a liquid at 25 C), has a specific heat of 4.186 J/g.C
... As a solid, at 0 C, the specific heat is approximately 2.2 J/g.C
Basalt - because of its complex nature, has a range of 0.2-0.8 J/g.C
Iron (as a solid) has a specific heat of 0.45 J/g.C
Lead (as a solid) has a specific heat of 0.128 J/g.C

This means it would take the most energy - and therefore the longest period of time at a given energy level - to heat up water by 1 degree (regardless whether it was liquid or solid to start with).

Answer 4

I would say basalt primarily because stone is the primary substance used to make forges in the old days because of the fact that it doesn't conduct heat. they were used to heat iron enough to forge it.
lead of course melts at a very low temperature and couldn't be the answer
water boils at a little over two hundred degrees, which wouldn't even heat iron nearly enough to forge

Answer 5

Hi. Water has a very high specific heat.

Answer 6

Iron.