In this video, we're going to introduce water's high specific heat. And so water's high specific heat really is what allows it to resist temperature changes. Now specific heat is really just defined as the amount of heat energy that's required to either raise or lower one gram of water, just one degree Celsius. And so because water has a high specific heat it means that it takes a relatively high amount of heat in order to either raise or lower 1 gram of water just 1 degree Celsius. And so think about it if you've ever tried to make some pasta first you have to put water into a pot and then you have to put that water in the pot onto a stove. But the water doesn't start boiling immediately once you put that water onto the hot stove. It takes some time, it takes quite a lot of energy in order to heat up that water and raise its temperature. And so this is water's ability to have a high specific heat and resist temperature changes. And it also works in the opposite way in terms of lowering the temperature of water. It takes a lot to lower the temperature of water. So if you have a water bottle for instance and you throw it into the freezer it doesn't freeze immediately, it takes several hours in order to cool down the water, until it freezes. And so water has this incredible ability to resist temperature changes because it has such a high specific heat.
Now resisting temperature changes is really, really critical for life to maintain homeostasis. Because once again, the temperatures of the environment are constantly going to be changing, some days it'll be hot, other days it'll be really cold. And so life needs to have this ability to maintain homeostasis, maintain an internal set of conditions. And because the cells are made up of a lot of water, they are able to resist the temperature changes and maintain constant temperatures inside the cell despite the fact that the outside of the cell is constantly changing. And so down below we're showing you an example of water's high specific heat. So notice we have this beaker here that's filled up with water and we're applying some heat here, a flame to the water to heat it up. But notice that the water here isn't really impressed by the amount of heat, and it's saying, "Is that all you got? Bring on the heat." It's going to take a lot more heat to raise my temperature than just a little flame here. And so that is just this idea that water has a high specific heat. It takes a lot of energy to raise or lower 1g of water 1 degree Celsius and that is what allows water to resist temperature changes.
And so this here concludes our introduction to water's high specific heat and we'll be able to get some practice applying these concepts moving forward in our course. So I'll see you all in our next video.