Casually Celsius

Y'know how when you put food in the microwave, it takes way longer to heat up some foods then others? Like it takes way longer to heat up leftover pizza than it does leftover fries? That's because different things store and move heat differently.

    In my science class, we did this experiment where we got a piece of metal that weighed the same amount as a cup full of water. The metal piece was then heated up a lot till it reached 100° Celsius, which is like the temperature water boils at. The water was just kept at room temperature though, which is like, around 23° Celsius. We also attached one thermometer to the metal piece and put another thermometer into the water cup before we dropped the metal into the water. We then looked at the thermometers and recorded the temperatures of both the metal and water at different times.

    The metal went from 100° Celsius to 26.2° Celsius which was a huge change compared to the water that only went from 24° Celsius to 26.2° Celsius. The reason they ended at the same temperature is because of this thing called thermal equillibirum where hot objects and cold objects shake hands and try to balance their temperatures until they're at the same temperature as each other. But the metal went down a whole 73.8° Celsius while the water went up only 2.2°Celsius. Why?

    That's because of this thing called specific heat capacity which measures how much heat objects need to change 1° Celsius for 1 gram, which is really just saying that it measures how much energy an object needs to increase it's own temperature by 1° Celsius. And because different objects are made out of different materials and elements of the periodic table and stuff like that, they require different amounts of energy to increase by 1° Celsius.

    The metal and water are obviously made out of different materials, which means the metal and water have different specific heat capacities. But which has the higher specific heat capacity? Well, since the metal and water were exchanging the same amount of heat, but the metal changed temperature more than the water did, that means the metal changes temperatures way easier than the water can. That means the metal has a lower specific heat capacity because it can change temperature easier, meaning it would take less heat to increase itself 1° Celsius compared to the water which changes temperature way less, meaning the water has a high specific heat capacity and needs more heat to increase itself 1° Celsius than the metal does.

So, why does it take more time to heat up pizza than fries in your microwave? The fries are made out of materials which have a lower specific heat capacity than the materials that make up the pizza, which means the fries need less heat or energy to increase their temperature, so the fries take less time to heat up in the microwave because they need less heat to increase their temperature to something that tastes delicious.