Where do the air bubbles on the bottom come from when you boil water?

Question

Where do the air bubbles on the bottom come from when you boil water?

In: 42

Answer 1

It’s steam, also called water vapor (water in gas form). Think of heat as energy. Ice is water at low energy. The atoms that make up water slow down when they are cold, because they lose energy. They slow down so much that they (almost) freeze in place, forming a solid (ice).

Boiling water is the opposite. You are heating up the water, so the atoms are gaining energy and moving more. They move so much that they start bouncing around and rising into the air in the form of a gas. The gas (steam) is just water with a bunch of energy.

So in terms of energy (or heat) for water, solids (ice) have the lowest energy, liquids (water) are in the middle, and gases (steam/water vapor) have the highest energy.