Why does adding water to boiling oil cause an explosion but nothing happens when adding oil to boiling water?
In: 200
Energy density.
Heat is a biproduct of energy transference. Energy density speaks to how much energy a material can have before it changes states. Oil takes more energy to change states from a liquid to a gas than water does.
Energy also likes to equalize so when a material with a lot of energy touches an energy with not much energy, the energy transfers from one to the other until they reach an equilibrium (if they can reach an equilibrium). We observe this in the kitchen with heat.
Since Oil takes a lot of energy to change state it holds a lot of energy. It coincidently holds enough energy that, while “hot enough”, it can transfer enough energy per second to have the amount of energy being put into the water reach that state-changing threshold requirement, and the water (near-instantly) changes state from liquid to gas. That gas takes up more space than the water did, and explodes outward from the oil.
It should be noted that this may still occur in a pot of oil that’s below the temperature of water boiling because of the energy density taking more energy to get the oil’s temperature to reach that level (degree of temperature), than it takes water.
Since oil has a higher energy density capacity than water, and takes more energy to change state, dropping oil into boiling water (water in the process of changing state) it reaches an energy equilibrium but does not change state itself.
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