If a glass of water is mostly ice with some water, how come the water doesn’t freeze? Is it something to do with the conduction heat transfer between the air and the glass of water? Im assuming that the water would freeze in a vacuum.
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The ice and water want to reach the same temperature (thermal equilibrium). Usually your glass of ice-water is sitting in a room full of air at room temperature, so the ice and water both want to get to room temperature, which is above the freezing point, meaning the ice melts.
If you put the glass of ice-water in the freezer, the water will freeze because the ambient temperature is now below the freezing point.
If you put the glass in a vacuum, the water will simultaneously freeze and boil until all the liquid is gone. Then the ice will sublimate until all that’s left is water vapour.
To summarize, a room full of air has so much heat, it can transfer that to the glass and water and ice until they all reach room temperature while imperceptibly lowering the temperature of the air. You would need a much smaller space for the capacity of the ice to store heat to freeze the water in room temperature air.
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