- #1
nmsurobert
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<< Moderator note: This thread is missing the homework template due to originally being posted in another forum. >>
hello everyone, this is my first post and I am looking for some help.
in my lab we did an experiment to calculate specific heat values for various metals using a calorimeter.
the first thing we did was calculate heat lost by adding hot water to some cold water then plugging numbers into formulas and calculating Qlost = Qintial - Qfinal
apparently our Qlost should've been a positive value and we calculated a negative value.
i don't understand why this is wrong. I would think that Qfinal should be larger than Qintial because we arent we adding energy to the system? It doesn't make sense to me why Qfinal should be smaller than Qinitial.
any input would be much appreciated!
hello everyone, this is my first post and I am looking for some help.
in my lab we did an experiment to calculate specific heat values for various metals using a calorimeter.
the first thing we did was calculate heat lost by adding hot water to some cold water then plugging numbers into formulas and calculating Qlost = Qintial - Qfinal
apparently our Qlost should've been a positive value and we calculated a negative value.
i don't understand why this is wrong. I would think that Qfinal should be larger than Qintial because we arent we adding energy to the system? It doesn't make sense to me why Qfinal should be smaller than Qinitial.
any input would be much appreciated!