Condensation of Water

This downloadable video is part of the multimedia package Stuff and Substance, developed by the Gatsby Science Enhancement Programme (SEP). It can be used to show water condensing out of the air. A pure sample of water is normally in the liquid state at room temperature, but water particles can remain separated when mixed with air. However, on cooling there comes a point when the air particles can no longer keep the water particles apart and droplets of liquid water form condensation. Since students find it difficult to believe that there can be water in clear air, they find the formation of condensation on cold objects quite puzzling.

The video shows droplets of water forming on a cold block of metal. These video and animation files form part of the Stuff and Substance multimedia package, which provides a series of interactive pages that can be used by teachers or students in the classroom.

Please note: From 2021, Adobe has discontinued support for Flash player and as a result some interactive files may no longer be playable. As an alternative method to accessing these files a group of volunteers passionate about the preservation of internet history have created project Ruffle (https://ruffle.rs/). Ruffle is an entirely open source project that you can download and run many interactive Flash resources. For further information regarding STEM Learning’s policy for website content, please visit our terms and conditions page.