Which substance is most likely to heat up the fastest?

water (specific heat of 4.19 /g • c°)
copper (specific heat of .39 /g • c°)
aluminum (specific heat of .90 /g • c°)
dry air (specific heat of 1.01 /g • c°)

Option (b) is the correct answer.

Explanation:

The amount of heat necessary to raise the temperature of 1 gram of a substance by is known as specific heat of a substance.

Mathematically,     q =

where,    q = Heat energy

               C = specific heat

          = change in temperature

Hence, smaller is the amount of heat required by a substance to raise the temperature of its 1 g by more readily it will get hot.

Therefore, out of the given options specific heat of copper is small. So, copper will heat up quickly.

Thus, we can conclude that copper is the substance which will likely to heat up the fastest.

radioactive decay occurs in unstable atomic nuclei – that is, ones that don't have enough binding energy to hold

the nucleus together due to an excess of either protons or neutrons.