Why does chocolate only melt smoothly in a pot inside hot water, but not in a pot that is directly heated?
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When a pot is heated, only the bottom of the pot is heated, the sides are only heated via internal thermal transmission inside the metal.
Water is a fluid, as the water at the bottom is heated it rises to the top, letting cool water circulate down to be heated. (Convection)
If you put a bowl into a pot of hot water, the bowl is heated uniformly, and not intensely in one spot (the bottom) because the water circulates as it is heated,
The other part is that water boils at 100 C, water that is continuously heated will not go above 100 C but will instead boil faster. meaning the water and thus the bowl will never exceed 100 C.
The metal at the bottom of the pan has no such limitations. it will heat up until the metal melts
(Note: You can superheat water, but that requires special equipment, and much higher pressure)
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