## anonymous one year ago When a 3-kg iron skillet is heated on the stove, it becomes hot very quickly. When 3 kg of water is heated on the stove it heats up slowly. What is the reason for this difference? Support your answer using 3 – 4 complete sentences.

1. anonymous

@Michele_Laino

2. anonymous

@KyanTheDoodle

3. anonymous

@cramos725

4. Michele_Laino

let's suppose to heat the same mass of water and iron, namely M=3 Kg of iron and M=3 kg of water Let's suppose furthermore, that the temperature difference is the same, say $\Delta \theta$

5. Michele_Laino

then the quantity of heat absobed by iron is: $\Delta {Q_{IRON}} = {c_{IRON}}M\Delta \theta$

6. Michele_Laino

where the quantity of heat absorbed by water is: $\Delta {Q_{WATER}} = {c_{WATER}}M\Delta \theta$

7. anonymous

None of that makes sense to me

8. Michele_Laino

now we can consider the specific heat of a substance: $\Large c = \frac{1}{M}\frac{{\Delta Q}}{{\Delta \theta }}$ as a heating rate with respect to the temperature difference

9. Michele_Laino

empirically we can say that the subsequent condition holds: $\Large \Delta {Q_{IRON}} > \Delta {Q_{WATER}}$ from which, we get: $\Large {c_{IRON}} > {c_{WATER}}$

10. Michele_Laino

and keeping in mind the meaning of c as heating rate, we get your answer

11. Michele_Laino

another reasoning is: the mobility of electrons inside the iron (please think about the Fermi sea) is greater than the mobility of the molecule of water, so the heat will transmit itself more rapidly in iron than in water