Practice question · True or false
During a first-order phase transition, adding heat does not raise the temperature.
Hints
- Where does the energy go while ice is melting?
- Into the latent heat of rearranging the phase, not into raising the temperature.
Show the answer
True
Why
True, every joule goes into the latent heat until the transition completes. This is exactly why an ice-water bath holds 0 °C so reliably that it serves as a calibration fixed point.
Practise Phase Transitions and Critical Phenomena
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