Different materials like water, aluminium, steel or glass need different amounts of energy to heat them up and they give out different amounts of energy when they cool down.

Energy needed to heat them up depends upon   a property of the material x mass x temperature rise

This property of the material is called the “specific heat capacity” abbreviated to SHC.  So that we can easily compare different materials, we use a standard mass and a standard temperature rise.

Most commonly the definition is:

The specific heat capacity is the energy needed to heat 1 kilogram of the substance by 1⁰C

in symbol form

E = cmΔθ      or   c =   E/mΔθ

The two diagrams below show the standard experimental equipment used to measure SHC in the laboratory.  In the video lesson below the diagrams I use more everyday equipment to perform a similar experiment.

You can download a pdf of notes on SHC here: Specific heat capacity