What is "latent heat"?

Answer 1

Latent heat (Or Invisible heat as my physics teacher used to call it) is the amount of heat needed to be absorbed by a solid to turn it into a liquied or a liquid to turn it into a gas, without changing the temperature of the substance. So, for example, water can be both liquid or solid at 0 deg C in the forms of water or ice and can be either water or water vapor at 100 deg C.

Answer 2

Latent heat is a term in thermodynamics. It is used when talking about changes in states, transitions between solid, liquid, and gaseous phases.

Consider an block of ice. Heating it up to 0 degrees celcius won't actually melt it, you need to heat it an additional 0.00something degrees more because the actual process of changing from solid to liquid takes up a bit of energy.

So the latent heat, (or enthalpy of formation) is that extra energy required to accomplish this change in phase.

Answer 3

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_heat
www.physchem.co.za/Heat/Latent.htm
www.britannica.com/eb/article-9047272/latent-heat
www.usatoday.com/weather/wlatent.htm
www.answers.com/topic/latent-heat

Answer 4

one good link(...if it is that what you meant)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latency_%28engineering%29