Why can air be compressed but not water?
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Water is like a bucket of marbles — all the molecules are in contact and sliding over each other. Since they’re in contact, there isn’t much of a way to make them get closer.
Air (or water vapor) is like marbles spread out on a plate (or in a box, but that’s slightly harder to visualize) — there’s space between them and they’re bouncing around. With air, the molecules are excited and bouncing off each other, and that’s what makes it have volume. But if you squeeze it into a smaller space, they get closer and bounce around more. That’s also why it heats up when you compress it.
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