Question

Thought Experiment: A composite material is composed of two mixed materials. Composites can take many forms, like mixed metals, mixed polymers, mixed liquids, mixed gases, liquids dispersed in polymers, solids suspended in liquids, etc. Essentially, any singular system in which two or more distinct phases can be identified can loosely be called a composite (for example, we might define an immiscible mixture of water and oil as a composite, but we would not define saline solution – salt dissolved in water – as a composite). Composites are fascinating because they retain the material properties of the individual components as well as exhibiting different properties as a whole. Suppose we have another sample that is composed of a mixture of “iron” and “rock” (for simplicity’s sake, assume the sample is simply a mixture of the two samples you already tested in this lab). How do you think the specific heat of this composite sample would compare with the specific heat from the samples independent of each other? Why?

Answer 1