Assume you are performing the calibration step of Experiment 8 and you begin with 50 g of water at 20 C and 50 g of water at 80 C. After adding the two portions of water into your calorimeter setup and following the procedure outlined in the experiment, you determine the temperature of the mixed portions of water to be 45 C. What is the heat capacity of the calorimeter?

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50 g of water at 20 C
50 g of water at 80 C.
Final temperature = 45 C.


You need to calculate the final temperature of a mixture of the two portions of water. This will not be 45 C. The mass of the calorimeter is responsible for cooling the water further. This is what you are supposed to calculate from the data.

Im so lost here! I don't understand what you are saying can you please explain this to me!

If you mix 50 g of water at 20 C and 50 g of water at 80 C, you'll end up with 100 g of water at 50 C. Right?

Now, the final temperature is 45 C as stated in the problem and not 5 C. The calorimeter is responsible for cooling the water further because the calorimeter has some heat capacity. That is what the calibration is for -- to figure out how the heat capacity of the calorimeter affects the overall temperature of the liquid.