water temperature questions

neginf

1. When a cup of water is in a freezer, for a while, some of it's ice and some of it's liquid.

Does that mean the liquid part has not hit freezing temperature yet or does the changeover from liquid to solid take a while, even at freezing temperature?

2. When a pot of water gets hot enough, small bubbles form.

Is that considered boiling ?

3. When a pot of water is boiling vigorously, some of it is steam and some of it is water.

Does that mean the water that is still liquid has not hit boiling temperature yet or does the change over from liquid to steam take a while, even at boiling temperature?

dacruick

any small bubble is vapor so its probably boiled. and the transition from water to ice does take a certain amount of energy, so it is likely that the water is below freezing but hasn't solidified yet.

EDIT: when I say that it has probably boiled im talking about the specific bubble not the whole pot.

Borek

Do you know what a latent heat is?

Ygggdrasil

Not necessarily. The solubility of gasses in water decreases as temperature increases. Therefore, the small bubbles could actually be gasses (e.g. nitrogen, oxygen) coming out of solution rather than water vapor.

For the rest of the questions, you have to consider that your system may not have had enough time to reach equilibrium.