Re: [Phys-l] good specific heat materials

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

On 01/03/2010 10:17 AM, Brian Blais wrote:

> I want to cover the topic of specific heat, and latent heat, with my  
> students in a lab setting.  Are there any good, cheap, and available  
> materials that anyone has used and would recommend?  Water is the  
> obvious standard, but perhaps anti-freeze, or some other materials  
> would be interesting as well.

Water is for sure on the good list, but it should be 
mentioned that water is highly anomalous.  There are
lots of things that make a nice contrast with water, 
have a phase transition at a convenient temperature,
are cheap, and are not too obnoxious to deal with, 
including:
  -- paraffin
  -- glycerin
  -- stearic acid

Gadolinium is great fun, because of the heat capacity
spike due to the Curie point (near room temperature).
The effect is big enough for not-very-skilled students
to observe with crude apparatus.  More advanced students
(undergrad physics majors) can measure it much more
accurately, compare to theory, et cetera.