Asked by junhgbf

Josh is making homemade lollipops. The recipe calls for dissolving 400 g sugar in 100 g of water. His friend, Alex, said that would never work because sugar’s solubility is 204 g per 100 g of water at 20°C. Despite Alex’s doubts, Josh successfully dissolves all 400 g of the sugar.

What did Josh do that allowed him to dissolve that much sugar in only 100 g of water?

Josh used sugar cubes instead of granulated sugar.
Josh used a pan with a large surface area.
Josh stirred the solution.
Josh heated the water.

All Answers 1

Answered by GPT-5 mini AI
Josh heated the water.

Solubility of sugar in water rises a lot with temperature (about 204 g/100 g water at 20°C but much higher at boiling — ~487 g/100 g water at 100°C), so warming the water lets you dissolve far more sugar. Stirring or surface area only change the rate of dissolving, and using sugar cubes wouldn’t allow more sugar to dissolve.