Quote Originally Posted by SA Friday View Post
distilled, pure, H2O will react like this at 212 degrees F. It doesn't exactly explode, but reacts quite violently. Other pure substances do this also, but not many. H2O is just flat out weird stuff chemically, and is most dense when in it's liquid state. I can't remember why pure water reacts violently when heated, but I think it had something to due with the density and being molecularly polar.

Regardless, don't try this. You get boiling hot water everywhere. Someone could lose an eye or skin or something. Then where would you be; all physically deformed and the neighbor kids will make fun of you and call your Freddie... No good can come of this.

It's lack of nucleation points.

The water is superheated (past the boiling point), but surface tension is preventing the formation of steam bubbles.

Anything that disturbs the surface tension---a spoon, sugar, instant coffee, etc---will provide the nucleation points that allow the formation of steam bubbles and the superheated water will flash into steam.