Crystals and transformation?

Question

Would more sugar crystals develop in boiling water or in cold water?
and
Can all conditions of rock formation be simulated (transformed)?

Answer 1

Size of a crystal depends on rate of crystallisation.
If you boil saturated sugar water to dry it completely, you will give less time to the crystals to grow, and consequently get more numbers of smaller crystals.
If you boil the saturated sugar water and then allow it to cool slowly, you will get moderate numbers of medium sized crystals. Slow evaporation of cold water will generate larger crystals, but they will be minimum in number. So if you want more crystals, you have to boil the saturated solution of sugar in water to dry. Conversely, if you want larger crystals, use cold evaporation.

No, all the conditions of rock formation in nature cannot be simulated. A rock may take millions of years to be metamorphosed under particular P-T conditions. The conditions can be replicated, but the time needed cannot be allowed. But most of the conditions of igneous and sedimentary rock formation can be simulated. It is being experimentally done, and it is a vast subject by itself, much beyond the scope of this platform.