Heat Needed to Melt Substances

Other Facts about Heat:
If a spoon is placed in a vessel of hot water for a few seconds and then removed, it will be warmer than before it was placed in the hot water. If a lump of melting ice is placed in the vessel of hot water and then removed, the ice will not be warmer than before, but there will be less of it. The heat of the water has been used in melting the ice, not in changing its temperature.

If, on a bitter cold day, a pail of snow is brought into a warm room and a thermometer is placed in the snow, the temperature rises gradually until 32° F. is reached, when it becomes stationary, and the snow begins to melt. If the pail is put on the fire, the temperature still remains 32°F., but the snow melts more rapidly. As soon as all the snow is completely melted, however, the temperature begins to rise and rises steadily until the water boils, when it again becomes stationary and remains so during the passage of water into vapor.

We see that heat must be supplied to ice at 0° C. or 32° F. in order to change it into water, and further, that the temperature of the mixture does not rise so long as any ice is present, no matter how much heat is supplied. The amount of heat necessary to melt 1 gram of ice is easily calculated.

Heat must be supplied to ice to melt it. On the other hand, water, in freezing, loses heat, and the amount of heat lost by freezing water is exactly equal to the amount of heat absorbed by melting ice.

The number of units of heat required to melt a unit mass of ice is called the heat of fusion of water.