Heating Water with Ice

This model shows an experiment that illustrates how water is a poor conductor of heat. A test tube filled with water contains a piece of ice at the bottom, fixed with a wire mesh. The upper part of test tube is heated with a Bunsen burner until the water at the top begins to boil. Despite this, the ice at the bottom remains largely unaffected and does not melt quickly, even as the water above it boils. Heat conduction occurs when a hot object is in direct contact with a cold object. The more energetic particles in the hot object transfer their heat energy to the less energetic particles in the cold object. Conduction is the most effective in solids, where particles are closely bound by strong intermolecular forces. In liquids, including water, the transfer of vibration energy between particles is much less efficient. Gases are even poorer conductors of heat due to the greater separation between their particles.