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Latent heat   /lˈeɪtənt hit/   Listen
adjective
Latent  adj.  
1.
Not visible or apparent; hidden; concealed; secret; dormant; as, latent springs of action. "The evils latent in the most promising contrivances are provided for as they arise."
2.
(Med.) Existing but not presenting symptoms; dormant or developing; of disease, especially infectious diseases; as, the latent phase of an infection.
Latent buds (Bot.), buds which remain undeveloped or dormant for a long time, but may eventually grow.
Latent heat (Physics), that quantity of heat which disappears or becomes concealed in a body while producing some change in it other than rise of temperature, as fusion, evaporation, or expansion, the quantity being constant for each particular body and for each species of change; the amount of heat required to produce a change of phase.
Latent period.
(a)
(Med.) The regular time in which a disease is supposed to be existing without manifesting itself.
(b)
(Physiol.) One of the phases in a simple muscular contraction, in which invisible preparatory changes are taking place in the nerve and muscle.
(c)
(Biol.) One of those periods or resting stages in the development of the ovum, in which development is arrested prior to renewed activity.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Latent heat" Quotes from Famous Books



... Crawford. He agreed with Dr. Black that heat not only was generated in the lungs, but that the arterial blood had a greater capacity for heat than the venous, and that this increase of capacity takes place in the lungs. At the moment heat is generated, a portion of it, under the name of latent heat, is absorbed and conveyed to the different parts of the body Wherever arterial blood is converted into venous, this latent heat is given out. But, unfortunately for this theory, Dr. Davy proved the capacity of both, for heat, ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... less than 101 deg. could not cause any such disaster, while the steam going off from the lungs through the arterial system to the capillaries, gradually condenses, warming the body by giving off its latent heat; and the latent heat of vapor is the same however it is formed, and is always 1,114 deg.. What divine wisdom and economy are ...
— Theory of Circulation by Respiration - Synopsis of its Principles and History • Emma Willard
... The latent heat of watery vapor at 212 deg. is 972 deg.; that is, when water at 212 deg. is converted into vapor at the same temperature, the amount of heat expended in the process is 972 deg.. This heat becomes latent, or insensible to the thermometer. ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... Bonenberger, it was employed by Captain Kater as the foundation of a most convenient practical method of determining the length of the pendulum.—The interval which separated the discovery, by Dr. Black, of latent heat, from the beautiful and successful application of it to the steam engine, was comparatively short; but it required the efforts of two minds; and both were of the highest order.—The influence of electricity ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... simply placed the cart before the horse. He made it clear that the air is not cooler because the dew is formed, but that the dew is formed because the air is cooler—having become so through radiation of heat from the solids on which the dew forms. The dew itself, in forming, gives out its latent heat, and so tends to equalize ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams


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