Answer 1:
A general answer to this question is this:
The cold water will condense more water than
hot water. Condensation is when something that is
a gas, changes into a liquid, usually by being
cooled down.
But here is more background:
Lets start with some important stuff: There are
generally three types of matter: Solid, liquid,
and gas. Solids are like sugar, salt, or ice,
liquids are like water you find in lakes and the
ocean, and gasses are like the air you breath. The
air, however, is made up of lots of different
types of things. This includes oxygen (which we
need to live), nitrogen and many, many, many other
gasses. One of those gases is water gas.
For your question we will talk about the
condensation of water gas into liquid
water.
So, how is water floating around as a gas in
the first place? Think about when your parents
are cooking, or when they make tea or hot
chocolate. They might boil water, right?
When the water gets really hot and boils, it
starts to bubble. What are the bubbles?
The bubbles are actually water gas!
When you boil the water, you have added enough
energy into the water to make it stop being a
liquid, and make it float away. That is why if
you heat water long enough you can make it all
disappear...it all escaped as gas! The water has
EVAPORATED. Water is evaporating all around
us all the time - constantly from the ocean,
constantly from rivers, and constantly from plants
and trees - you should look up what is called
The Water
Cycle to see how rain clouds form and water
is recycled on Earth.
But now this: How do you turn water gas to
liquid water? Well, you would do the opposite
of heating it up. You would need to cool it
down!
So, this is why a glass of ice water starts to
have water form on the outside of the glass.
The cold glass is cooling the air around it so
much, that the water gas floating around in the
air is becoming so cold that it can turn into
liquid water on the outside of the glass - or
condensing on the glass.
It doesn't have to be a cold glass of water
though, it can be anything cold! You could try
this experiment - put a metal spoon in the
freezer and also put a metal spoon in the fridge
for ten minutes, then take them out and leave them
on a counter. What happens after 2 minutes? 5
minutes? Is there a difference in what happens to
the spoons? Why do you think?
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