Heat The "molar heat capacity" is the heat capacity per unit amount (SI unit: mole) of a pure substance, and the "specific heat capacity", often called simply "specific heat", is the heat capacity per unit mass of a material. Heat capacity is a physical property of a substance, which means that it depends on the state and properties of the substance under consideration. The specific heats of monatomic gases, such as helium, are nearly constant with temperature. Diatomic gases such as hydrogen display some temperature dependence, and triatomic gases (e.g., carbon dioxide) still more. Before the development of the laws of
Action (physics) Action (physics) In physics, action is an attribute of the dynamics of a physical system from which the equations of motion of the system can be derived. It is a mathematical functional which takes the trajectory, also called "path" or "history", of the system as its argument and has a real number as its result. Generally, the action takes different values for different paths. Action has the dimensions of [energy]⋅[time] or [momentum]⋅[length], and its SI unit is joule-second. Hamilton's principle states that the differential equations of motion for "any" physical system can be re-formulated as an equivalent integral equation. Thus,