Question

Why is the base of a cooking pan made thick and heavy?​

Answer 1

By making the base of the cooking pan thick, the mass of the cooking pan becomes more due to which its heat capacity increases.We know that Q = mc∆T.
Thus, we need c and ∆T to be low, since a higher c means heat is not transferred to the food rapidly and larger ∆T means temperature is increasing rapidly, which could be dangerous.
So, the only option is to increase the mass m, so that more heat is absorbed and rapidly transferred to the food on the stove.