Fill a glas of water to the top. Get a pound of sugar in a bowl; get a spoon. Take bets from your friends as to how many spoonfuls of sugar you can get into the glass before the water overflows.
Sugar may be water soluble, but the glass would still overflow. Water (and any other fluid solvent for that matter) has a saturation point. This is perhaps an over simplification, but in essence a glass of water (let's say 12oz) can accept only a limited amount of sugar. Once that point is reached the rest of the sugar will pile up at the bottom of the glass and it will overflow. One pound of sugar is too much for a 12oz glass of water to handle, the glass would have to be far larger. Finally the glass would overflow immediately since the sugar would not dissolve instantaneously. Here is a link to a web site about chemical solutions and saturation points. http://www.school-for-champions.com/science/chemsolutions.htm
no actually, silly fellows. it doesnt matter that sugar is water soluable. that doesnt mean it's mass dissapears! it just means its spread around the water. if you add 1 cc of pure powdered sugar to any amount of any temperature of water, the water volume would increase by 1 cc otherwise you would be turning something into nothing you would lose the bet. you dont understand the true nature of this mindfuck, its a neat trick to get people like you to betting ANY amount of sugar can be put into the water before it overflows. of course, conventional sugar will shrink a lot when dissolved in water because as a crystal it is not very dense, but if the glass is full to the top, any amount of added sugar or added anything will make it overflow.
I'm talking about how much will dissolve, the other bit doesn't matter to me, I just am talking about level of dissolution, I don't think a pound of sugar will dissolve in a cup (8oz) of water at room temperature, it would have to be mad hot and not boiling (possible but difficult while adding sugar)
