The Development of the Scientific Instrument for Measuring the Specific Heat

Abstract

The purpose of the learning on the specific heat in the Science I course is to have the students understand the basic concept of the heat energy. At present, the procedure for measuring the specific heat in the most science textbooks for Science I employ the so-called mixed method, though this has some defects. In other words, as this is employed, the students cannot directly measure the temperature of samples. Therefore, in this paper, the author has intended to alter this procedure so that the students can directly measure the temperature of them. To solve this problem, he has developed the following instrument. It is the cylindrical metal bar (d = 3 cm, h = 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 cm) that has one hole to insert the glass tube (d = 1 cm, h = 15 cm). Through this tube, thermometer can directly contact with the metal. Then, the temperature of it are directly measured. As the result of using this, the obtained specific heat values have corresponded to the theoretical values.