I’m five, and I’d like a simple way of understanding water’s triple point.
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Water has 3 states of matter.
Liquid, frozen and vapour.
What state of matter it is in, depends on two things; Temperature and pressure.
Example: We are used to dealing with mostly the same pressures, and only changes in temperature. But if you were to go up a mountain, you would notice that water boils only at like 70-90 degrees C instead of the usual 100.
You can think of it like this: The water is made of small drops, high temperature makes drops go move around a lot, high pressure pushes the water together. Frozen: The water is tight, liquid: The water is somewhat loose, and vapour: the water is very far from each other.
So because the state of water depends on both pressure and vapour, the 3 states of matter meet at one point where a small difference in temperature or pressure results in a jumping to a different phase of matter. You can see it here: [https://64.media.tumblr.com/68160af16a7f26384d0ca5a9497d2e30/tumblr_mp7bjokR3g1qa0fruo1_1280.jpg](https://64.media.tumblr.com/68160af16a7f26384d0ca5a9497d2e30/tumblr_mp7bjokR3g1qa0fruo1_1280.jpg)
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