Question

If a student’s coffee cups are discarded after determining the heat capacity and used new coffee cups for the specific heat capacity of the nails experiment. How would this error impact the results?

Answer 1

The error in the result will depend upon the heat capacity of the new coffee cups. If the heat capacity of coffee cups is same there will be minute or no error. However if the heat capacity of new coffee cups is different than the one used earlier then there will be error in measurement of heat capacity of nails. For example if heat capacity of new coffee cups is higher then the calculated heat capacity of nails will also be higher becuse some extra heat will be absorbed by coffee cups and that will be counted with heat capacity of nails. Similarly if heat capacity of new coffee cups is lower the calculated heat capacity of nails will be lower.