@lemon, Hi, thanks for that. I calculated the force to be about 20 newtons, is that about right? I'm not sure because I don't know what the units are in that formula.

You linked to my post from Aug 2014 in cooking.stackexchange

Also you admit that you've been digging through my posts from 2014, which is creepy and weird.

I think you should keep your wonderings about my cooking experience to yourself as cooking has no relevance to this conversation. I'm trying to have an intellectual exchange, but you seem to be trying to assert your dominance in the kitchen. You don't seem to be able to focus on individual concepts and resort to condescendence and insults when you get confused. Furthermore you don't seem to be able to bring any scientific reasoning to support your claims.

Still there is no explanation for why placing a lid increases total evaporation rate. I would argue that it does not matter: The same amount of heat energy enters the system, and the only way it can escape is via evaporation, so that must be constant as well.

@SteveJessop If the amount of heat energy entering the pot is X units/second, this value does not change considerably with the addition of the lid. Once equilibrium is reached the temperature of the pot is constant, so there must be X units/second heat energy leaving the pot. This can only happen via evaporation. So I think it's constant.

I don't think you can conclude from the fact that there is condensation on the lid that the water would boil faster without the lid. With the lid on, some of the water falls back in, but more water boils. I think overall the amount of water which escapes the pot+lid system may be the same.

This seems like a tutorial on sauce making and a story about a camping trip rather than an answer to the question.

@jkeuhlen How do you propose for someone to apply a known force to him/herself in a frictionless setting and then measure the acceleration to within 0.1% accuracy?