Question

It is summer time, and it is sunny out! You decide not to waste such a beautiful day and go for a walk around your neighborhood. You couldn’t find shoes, but you go for a walk anyway. You start out on concrete sidewalk, and then you cross an asphalt parking lot. However, the parking lot is too hot for your feet, and it causes you to turn back. Why would one of these materials feel warmer to the touch than the other? Explain using the specific heat theory.

Answer 1

specific heat of a material is defined as amount of heat required to increase the temperaure of unit mass of material by 1⁰C.

parking lot and concrete sidewalk both receive same amount of heat from sun.

Since parking lot is too hot,

=> temperature of parking lot has increased more than that of concrete sidewalk for same amount of heat from sun

=> specific heat of parking lot material is less than that of concrete sidewalk.

So temperature of material with lesser specific heat increase more than the temperature of material with higher specific heat.