Science aficionados please: Does boiled water weigh more? What scientific principle is at play here? (Page 2)

AmandaYVR · 2021-10-01T18:53:28Z

This is a dumb question, but I've been wondering it for a while. These unanswered things are like itchy sweaters to me. Every morning I get up and put on this kettle to boil water for some coffee. I try to fill about the right amount for just 2 mugs of coffee (one for me, one for my husband.) This kettle is high quality stainless steel, gets nice and hot very quickly. But... it's heavy, so I don't want the kettle to weigh any more than it needs to. My question is about the perceived weight. When the water is boiling (not just a low simmer, but a rapid boil), the kettle always feels significantly heavier. Is this possible at all, or is it my mind or body playing tricks? Does the agitation of the water do something to the perceived weight? I know almost nothing about scientific principles; yet problems, or questions like this can sit in my mind and I think about them every time I'm in the situation again. I've been experimenting for months with this, changing the hands I use to lift the kettle, both when I first fill it from the kitchen tap, and when I pour it once it's boiling. (My left wrist tends to hurt, in general, because I hold my cell phone in that hand almost exclusively and I'm pretty sure it's got carpal tunnel now, so this whole thing is not because I'm using different hands before and after. I use the same one hand (sometimes the left, sometimes the right.) I've even tried using two hands to lift. No matter what I do, I feel like the kettle weighs more later, on boiling. Once I do the first pour into the filters, walk away, come back to fill the second time, I easily notice a difference in weight. So if the heating and agitation of the water creates [what? instability or something?], is it real or perceived, and what's the scientific name, or principle, associated with that? I'm just curious. (We could use more science and learning on GAG, no?)