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Re: A "heat" question



Part of my frustration is that I try to be careful to emphsize process - like "latent heat of
vaporization" being a quantity of energy required to vaporize a unit mass of a saturated
liquid - yet my students come in from other courses and glibly speak of latent heat as being
a "hidden heat" associated with a phase of a material.

I'll admit that I often end up surrendering the purist's position because it takes up so much
class time.

Bob at PC

CSAM Montclair State University wrote:

I gave up on always using "thermal energy" instead of "heat".
Using these two terms interchangeably works fine.
Ludwik Kowalski

Bob LaMontagne wrote:

I've noticed that this list group has a general aversion to using "heat" as a noun - a
position I agree with. In atmospheric physics, it is common to use terms like "sensible
heat" and "latent heat". What techniques have people on the list developed to deal with
these commonly accepted terms but still deal with heat as a transferring of energy?

This posting is the position of the writer, not that of SUNY-BSC, NAU or the AAPT.

This posting is the position of the writer, not that of SUNY-BSC, NAU or the AAPT.