The British Royal Society of Chemistry is offering a £1,000 reward to anyone who can scientifically explain why, in some cases, hot water freezes faster than cold water.

“Modern science still cannot answer this seemingly simple question. Ice cream makers and bartenders use this effect in their daily work, but no one really knows why it works. This problem has been known for millennia, and philosophers such as Aristotle and Descartes have thought about it,” said Professor David Philips, President of the British Royal Society of Chemistry, quoted in the Society's press release.

How an African chef beat a British physics professor

This is not an April Fool's joke, but a harsh physical reality. Today's science, which easily operates on galaxies and black holes, building giant accelerators to search for quarks and bosons, cannot explain how elemental water "works". The school textbook unambiguously states that it takes more time to cool a hot body than to cool a cold body. But for water, this law is not always observed. Aristotle drew attention to this paradox in the 4th century BC. e. Here is what the ancient Greek wrote in the book "Meteorologica I": "The fact that the water is preheated contributes to its freezing. Therefore, many people, when they want to quickly cool hot water, first put it in the sun ... ”In the Middle Ages, Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes tried to explain this phenomenon. Alas, neither the great philosophers nor the numerous scientists who developed classical thermal physics succeeded in this, and therefore such an inconvenient fact was “forgotten” for a long time.

And only in 1968 they “remembered” thanks to the schoolboy Erasto Mpemba from Tanzania, far from any science. While studying at a cooking school, in 1963, 13-year-old Mpembe was given the task of making ice cream. According to the technology, it was necessary to boil milk, dissolve sugar in it, cool it to room temperature, and then put it in the refrigerator to freeze. Apparently, Mpemba was not a diligent student and hesitated. Fearing that he would not be in time by the end of the lesson, he put the still hot milk in the refrigerator. To his surprise, it froze even earlier than the milk of his comrades, prepared according to all the rules.

When Mpemba shared his discovery with a physics teacher, he made fun of him in front of the whole class. Mpemba remembered the insult. Five years later, already a student at the University of Dar es Salaam, he was at a lecture by the famous physicist Denis G. Osborn. After the lecture, he asked the scientist a question: “If you take two identical containers with the same amount of water, one at 35 °C (95 °F) and the other at 100 °C (212 °F), and put them in the freezer, then water in a hot container will freeze faster. Why?" You can imagine the reaction of a British professor to a question from a young man from godforsaken Tanzania. He made fun of the student. However, Mpemba was ready for such an answer and challenged the scientist to a wager. Their argument culminated in an experimental test that proved Mpemba right and Osborne defeated. So the student-cooker inscribed his name in the history of science, and henceforth this phenomenon is called the "Mpemba effect". To discard it, to declare it as if "non-existent" does not work. The phenomenon exists, and, as the poet wrote, "not in the tooth with a foot."

Are dust particles and dissolved substances to blame?

Over the years, many have tried to unravel the mystery of freezing water. A whole bunch of explanations for this phenomenon have been proposed: evaporation, convection, the influence of solutes - but none of these factors can be considered definitive. A number of scientists devoted their entire lives to the Mpemba effect. James Brownridge, a member of the Department of Radiation Safety at the State University of New York, has been studying the paradox in his spare time for over a decade. After conducting hundreds of experiments, the scientist claims that he has evidence of the "guilt" of hypothermia. Brownridge explains that at 0°C, water only supercools, and begins to freeze when the temperature drops below. The freezing point is regulated by impurities in the water - they change the rate of formation of ice crystals. Impurities, and these are dust particles, bacteria and dissolved salts, have their characteristic nucleation temperature, when ice crystals form around the crystallization centers. When several elements are present in water at once, the freezing point is determined by the one with the highest nucleation temperature.

For the experiment, Brownridge took two samples of water at the same temperature and placed them in a freezer. He found that one of the specimens always freezes before the other - presumably due to a different combination of impurities.

Brownridge claims that hot water cools faster due to the greater temperature difference between the water and the freezer - this helps it reach its freezing point before cold water reaches its natural freezing point, which is at least 5°C lower.

However, Brownridge's reasoning raises many questions. Therefore, those who can explain the Mpemba effect in their own way have a chance to compete for a thousand pounds sterling from the British Royal Society of Chemistry.

Chemistry was one of my favorite subjects in school. Once a chemistry teacher gave us a very strange and difficult task. He gave us a list of questions that we had to answer in terms of chemistry. We were given several days for this task and were allowed to use libraries and other available sources of information. One of these questions concerned the freezing point of water. I don't remember exactly how the question sounded, but it was about the fact that if you take two wooden buckets of the same size, one with hot water, the other with cold water (at exactly the specified temperature), and place them in an environment with a certain temperature, which one will they freeze faster? Of course, the answer immediately suggested itself - a bucket of cold water, but it seemed to us too simple. But this was not enough to give a complete answer, we needed to prove it from a chemical point of view. Despite all my thinking and research, I could not draw a logical conclusion. On this day, I even decided to skip this lesson, so I never found out the solution to this riddle.

Years passed, and I learned a lot of everyday myths about the boiling point and freezing point of water, and one myth said: "hot water freezes faster." I looked at many websites but the information was too conflicting. And these were just opinions, unfounded from the point of view of science. And I decided to conduct my own experience. Since I couldn't find wooden buckets, I used a freezer, stovetop, some water, and a digital thermometer. I will talk about the results of my experience a little later. First, I will share with you some interesting arguments about water:

Hot water freezes faster than cold water. Most experts say that cold water will freeze faster than hot water. But one funny phenomenon (the so-called Memba effect), for unknown reasons, proves the opposite: Hot water freezes faster than cold water. One of several explanations is the evaporation process: if very hot water is placed in a cold environment, then the water will begin to evaporate (the remaining amount of water will freeze faster). And according to the laws of chemistry, this is not a myth at all, and most likely this is what the teacher wanted to hear from us.

Boiled water freezes faster than tap water. Despite the previous explanation, some experts argue that boiled water that has cooled to room temperature should freeze faster because the amount of oxygen is reduced as a result of boiling.

Cold water boils faster than hot water. If hot water freezes faster, then cold water may boil faster! This is contrary to common sense and scientists argue that this simply cannot be. Hot tap water should actually boil faster than cold water. But by using hot water to boil, you don't save energy. You may use less gas or electricity, but the water heater will use the same amount of energy that is needed to heat cold water. (Solar power is a little different.) As a result of heating the water with a water heater, sediment may form, so the water will take longer to heat up.

If you add salt to water, it will boil faster. Salt increases the boiling point (and therefore lowers the freezing point - which is why some housewives add a little rock salt to ice cream). But in this case, we are interested in another question: how long will the water boil and whether the boiling point in this case can rise above 100 ° C). Despite what cookbooks say, scientists say that the amount of salt we add to boiling water is not enough to affect the time or temperature of the boil.

But here's what I got:

Cold water: I used three 100 ml glass beakers of purified water: one room temperature (72°F/22°C), one hot water (115°F/46°C), and one boiled (212 °F/100°C). I placed all three glasses in the freezer at -18°C. And since I knew that water would not immediately turn into ice, I determined the degree of freezing by the “wooden float”. When the stick, placed in the center of the glass, no longer touched the base, I believed that the water had frozen. I checked the glasses every five minutes. And what are my results? The water in the first glass froze after 50 minutes. Hot water froze after 80 minutes. Boiled - after 95 minutes. My Conclusions: Considering the conditions in the freezer and the water I used, I was unable to reproduce the Memba effect.

I also tried this experiment with previously boiled water cooled to room temperature. It froze in 60 minutes - it still took longer than cold water to freeze.

Boiled water: I took a liter of water at room temperature and put it on fire. She boiled in 6 minutes. Then I cooled it down to room temperature again and added it to the hot one. With the same fire, hot water boiled in 4 hours and 30 minutes. Conclusion: as expected, hot water boils much faster.

Boiled water (with salt): I added 2 large tablespoons of table salt to 1 liter of water. It boiled in 6 minutes 33 seconds, and as the thermometer showed it reached a temperature of 102°C. Undoubtedly, salt affects the boiling point, but not much. Conclusion: salt in water does not greatly affect the temperature and boiling time. I honestly admit that my kitchen is hard to call a laboratory, and perhaps my conclusions are contrary to reality. My freezer may freeze food unevenly. My glass glasses might be irregular, etc. But whatever happens in the laboratory, when it comes to freezing or boiling water in the kitchen, the most important thing is common sense.

link with interesting facts about waterall about water
as suggested on the forum.ixbt.com forum, this effect (the effect of freezing hot water faster than cold water) is called the "Aristotle-Mpemba effect"

Those. boiled water (chilled) freezes faster than "raw"

Which water freezes faster, hot or cold, is influenced by many factors, but the question itself seems a little strange. It is understood, and it is known from physics, that hot water still needs time to cool down to the temperature of comparable cold water in order to turn into ice. Cold water can skip this stage, and, accordingly, it wins in time.

But the answer to the question of which water freezes faster - cold or hot - on the street in frost, any inhabitant of the northern latitudes knows. In fact, scientifically, it turns out that in any case, cold water simply has to freeze faster.

So did the teacher of physics, who was approached by the schoolboy Erasto Mpemba in 1963 with a request to explain why the cold mixture of future ice cream freezes longer than a similar, but hot one.

"This is not world physics, but some kind of Mpemba physics"

At that time, the teacher only laughed at this, but Deniss Osborne, a professor of physics, who at one time went to the same school where Erasto studied, experimentally confirmed the existence of such an effect, although there was no explanation for this then. In 1969 a popular scientific journal published a joint article by the two men who described this peculiar effect.

Since then, by the way, the question of which water freezes faster - hot or cold, has its own name - the effect, or paradox, Mpemba.

The question has been around for a long time

Naturally, such a phenomenon has taken place before, and it was mentioned in the works of other scientists. Not only the schoolboy was interested in this question, but Rene Descartes and even Aristotle thought about it at one time.

Here are just approaches to solving this paradox began to look only at the end of the twentieth century.

Conditions for a paradox to occur

As with ice cream, it's not just ordinary water that freezes during the experiment. Certain conditions must be present in order to start arguing which water freezes faster - cold or hot. What influences this process?

Now, in the 21st century, several options have been put forward that can explain this paradox. Which water freezes faster, hot or cold, may depend on the fact that it has a higher evaporation rate than cold water. Thus, its volume decreases, and with a decrease in volume, the freezing time becomes shorter than if we take a similar initial volume of cold water.

Freezer has long been defrosted

Which water freezes faster, and why it does so, can be affected by the snow lining that may be present in the freezer of the refrigerator used for the experiment. If you take two containers that are identical in volume, but one of them will have hot water and the other cold water, the container with hot water will melt the snow underneath, thereby improving the contact of the thermal level with the refrigerator wall. A cold water container can't do that. If there is no such lining with snow in the refrigerator, cold water should freeze faster.

Top - bottom

Also, the phenomenon of which water freezes faster - hot or cold, is explained as follows. Following certain laws, cold water starts to freeze from the upper layers, when hot water does it the other way around - it starts to freeze from the bottom up. It turns out that cold water, having a cold layer on top with ice already formed in some places, thus worsens the processes of convection and thermal radiation, thereby explaining which water freezes faster - cold or hot. A photo from amateur experiments is attached, and here it is clearly visible.

The heat goes out, tending upwards, and there it meets a very cool layer. There is no free path for heat radiation, so the cooling process becomes difficult. Hot water has absolutely no such barriers in its path. Which freezes faster - cold or hot, on which the probable outcome depends, you can expand the answer by saying that any water has certain substances dissolved in it.

Impurities in the composition of water as a factor influencing the outcome

If you do not cheat and use water with the same composition, where the concentrations of certain substances are identical, then cold water should freeze faster. But if a situation occurs when dissolved chemical elements are present only in hot water, while cold water does not possess them, then hot water has the opportunity to freeze earlier. This is explained by the fact that the dissolved substances in water create centers of crystallization, and with a small number of these centers, the transformation of water into a solid state is difficult. Even supercooling of water is possible, in the sense that at sub-zero temperatures it will be in a liquid state.

But all these versions, apparently, did not suit the scientists to the end, and they continued to work on this issue. In 2013, a team of researchers in Singapore said they had solved the age-old mystery.

A group of Chinese scientists claim that the secret of this effect lies in the amount of energy that is stored between water molecules in its bonds, called hydrogen bonds.

The answer from Chinese scientists

Further information will follow, for the understanding of which it is necessary to have some knowledge in chemistry in order to figure out which water freezes faster - hot or cold. As you know, it consists of two H (hydrogen) atoms and one O (oxygen) atom held together by covalent bonds.

But hydrogen atoms of one molecule are also attracted to neighboring molecules, to their oxygen component. These bonds are called hydrogen bonds.

At the same time, it is worth remembering that at the same time, water molecules act repulsively on each other. Scientists noted that when water is heated, the distance between its molecules increases, and this is facilitated by repulsive forces. It turns out that occupying one distance between molecules in a cold state, one can say that they stretch, and they have a greater supply of energy. It is this energy reserve that is released when water molecules begin to approach each other, that is, cooling occurs. It turns out that a larger supply of energy in hot water, and its greater release when cooled to sub-zero temperatures, occurs faster than in cold water, which has a smaller supply of such energy. So which water freezes faster - cold or hot? On the street and in the laboratory, the Mpemba paradox should occur, and hot water should turn into ice faster.

But the question is still open

There is only theoretical confirmation of this clue - all this is written in beautiful formulas and seems plausible. But when the experimental data, which water freezes faster - hot or cold, will be put in a practical sense, and their results will be presented, then it will be possible to consider the question of the Mpemba paradox closed.

Water is one of the most amazing liquids in the world, which has unusual properties. For example, ice - a solid state of liquid, has a specific gravity lower than water itself, which made the emergence and development of life on Earth in many ways possible. In addition, in the near-scientific, and indeed the scientific world, there are discussions about which water freezes faster - hot or cold. Whoever proves faster freezing of a hot liquid under certain conditions and scientifically substantiates his decision will receive an award of £1,000 from the British Royal Society of Chemists.

Background

The fact that, under a number of conditions, hot water is ahead of cold water in terms of freezing rate, was noticed back in the Middle Ages. Francis Bacon and René Descartes have put a lot of effort into explaining this phenomenon. However, from the point of view of classical heat engineering, this paradox cannot be explained, and they tried to bashfully hush it up. The impetus for the continuation of the dispute was a somewhat curious story that happened to the Tanzanian schoolboy Erasto Mpemba (Erasto Mpemba) in 1963. Once, during a dessert-making lesson at a cooking school, a boy, distracted by other things, did not have time to cool the ice cream mixture in time and put a solution of sugar in hot milk into the freezer. To his surprise, the product cooled somewhat faster than his fellow practitioners who observed the temperature regime for making ice cream.

Trying to understand the essence of the phenomenon, the boy turned to a physics teacher, who, without going into details, ridiculed his culinary experiments. However, Erasto was distinguished by enviable perseverance and continued his experiments no longer on milk, but on water. He made sure that in some cases hot water freezes faster than cold water.

Entering the University of Dar es Salaam, Erasto Mpembe attended a lecture by Professor Dennis G. Osborne. After graduation, the student puzzled the scientist with the problem of the rate of freezing of water depending on its temperature. D.G. Osborne ridiculed the very posing of the question, stating with aplomb that any loser knows that cold water will freeze faster. However, the natural tenacity of the young man made itself felt. He made a bet with the professor, offering to conduct an experimental test here, in the laboratory. Erasto placed two containers of water in the freezer, one at 95°F (35°C) and the other at 212°F (100°C). What was the surprise of the professor and the surrounding "fans" when the water in the second container froze faster. Since then, this phenomenon has been called the "Mpemba Paradox".

However, to date there is no coherent theoretical hypothesis explaining the "Mpemba Paradox". It is not clear what external factors, the chemical composition of water, the presence of dissolved gases and minerals in it, affect the rate of freezing of liquids at different temperatures. The paradox of the "Mpemba Effect" is that it contradicts one of the laws discovered by I. Newton, which states that the cooling time of water is directly proportional to the temperature difference between the liquid and the environment. And if all other liquids are completely subject to this law, then water in some cases is an exception.

Why does hot water freeze faster?t

There are several versions of why hot water freezes faster than cold water. The main ones are:

• hot water evaporates faster, while its volume decreases, and a smaller volume of liquid cools faster - when water is cooled from + 100 ° C to 0 ° C, volume losses at atmospheric pressure reach 15%;
• the intensity of heat exchange between the liquid and the environment is the higher, the greater the temperature difference, so the heat loss of boiling water passes faster;
• when hot water cools, an ice crust forms on its surface, which prevents the liquid from completely freezing and evaporating;
• at a high temperature of water, its convection mixing occurs, reducing the freezing time;
• gases dissolved in water lower the freezing point, taking energy for crystal formation - there are no dissolved gases in hot water.

All these conditions have been subjected to repeated experimental verification. In particular, the German scientist David Auerbach discovered that the crystallization temperature of hot water is slightly higher than that of cold water, which makes it possible to freeze the former more quickly. However, later his experiments were criticized and many scientists are convinced that the “Mpemba Effect” about which water freezes faster - hot or cold, can only be reproduced under certain conditions, which no one has been looking for and concretizing so far.

This is true, although it sounds incredible, because in the process of freezing, preheated water must pass the temperature of cold water. Meanwhile, this effect is widely used. For example, ice rinks and slides are filled with hot water instead of cold water in winter. Experts advise motorists to pour cold rather than hot water into the washer reservoir in winter. The paradox is known worldwide as the "Mpemba Effect".

This phenomenon was mentioned at one time by Aristotle, Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes, but only in 1963 did physics professors pay attention to it and try to investigate it. It all started when Tanzanian schoolboy Erasto Mpemba noticed that the sweetened milk he used to make ice cream solidified faster if it was preheated and suggested that hot water freezes faster than cold water. He turned to the physics teacher for clarification, but he only laughed at the student, saying the following: "This is not world physics, but the physics of Mpemba."

Fortunately, Dennis Osborn, a professor of physics from the University of Dar es Salaam, visited the school one day. And Mpemba turned to him with the same question. The professor was less skeptical, said that he could not judge what he had never seen, and upon returning home asked the staff to conduct appropriate experiments. It looks like they confirmed the boy's words. In any case, in 1969, Osborne spoke about working with Mpemba in the magazine "Eng. PhysicsEducation". In the same year, George Kell of the Canadian National Research Council published an article describing the phenomenon in English. AmericanJournalofPhysics».

There are several possible explanations for this paradox:

• Hot water evaporates faster, thereby reducing its volume, and a smaller volume of water with the same temperature freezes faster. In airtight containers, cold water should freeze faster.
• The presence of snow lining. The hot water container melts the snow underneath, thereby improving thermal contact with the cooling surface. Cold water does not melt snow under it. With no snow lining, the cold water container should freeze faster.
• Cold water begins to freeze from above, thereby worsening the processes of heat radiation and convection, and hence the loss of heat, while hot water begins to freeze from below. With additional mechanical agitation of the water in the containers, the cold water should freeze faster.
• The presence of crystallization centers in the cooled water - substances dissolved in it. With a small number of such centers in cold water, the transformation of water into ice is difficult, and even its supercooling is possible when it remains in a liquid state, having a sub-zero temperature.

Another explanation has recently been published. Dr. Jonathan Katz of the University of Washington investigated this phenomenon and concluded that substances dissolved in water play an important role in it, which precipitate when heated.
By solutes, Dr. Katz means the calcium and magnesium bicarbonates found in hard water. When the water is heated, these substances precipitate, the water becomes "soft". Water that has never been heated contains these impurities and is "hard". As it freezes and ice crystals form, the concentration of impurities in water increases 50 times. This lowers the freezing point of water.

This explanation does not seem convincing to me, because. we must not forget that the effect was found in experiments with ice cream, and not with hard water. Most likely, the causes of the phenomenon are thermophysical, and not chemical.

So far, no unambiguous explanation of the Mpemba paradox has been received. I must say that some scientists do not consider this paradox worthy of attention. However, it is very interesting that a simple schoolboy has achieved recognition of the physical effect and gained popularity because of his curiosity and perseverance.

Added February 2014

The note was written in 2011. Since then, new studies of the Mpemba effect and new attempts to explain it have appeared. So, in 2012, the Royal Society of Chemistry of Great Britain announced an international competition to unravel the scientific mystery “The Mpemba Effect” with a prize fund of 1000 pounds. The deadline was set on July 30, 2012. The winner was Nikola Bregovik from the laboratory of the University of Zagreb. He published his work, in which he analyzed previous attempts to explain this phenomenon and came to the conclusion that they were not convincing. The model he proposed is based on the fundamental properties of water. Those interested can find a job at http://www.rsc.org/mpemba-competition/mpemba-winner.asp

The research didn't end there. In 2013, physicists from Singapore theoretically proved the cause of the Mepemba effect. The work can be found at http://arxiv.org/abs/1310.6514.

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Comments:

Alexey Mishnev. , 06.10.2012 04:14

Why does hot water evaporate faster? Scientists have practically proven that a glass of hot water freezes faster than cold water. Scientists cannot explain this phenomenon for the reason that they do not understand the essence of phenomena: heat and cold! Heat and cold are physical sensations caused by the interaction of particles of Matter, in the form of a counter compression of magnetic waves that move from the side of space and from the center of the earth. Therefore, the greater the potential difference of this magnetic voltage, the faster the energy exchange is carried out by the method of counter-penetration of one wave into another. That is, by diffusion! In response to my article, one opponent writes: 1) “..Hot water evaporates FASTER, as a result of which there is less of it, so it freezes faster” Question! What energy makes water evaporate faster? 2) In my article, we are talking about a glass, and not about a wooden trough, which the opponent cites as a counterargument. What is not correct! I answer the question: “FOR WHAT REASON DOES WATER EVAPORATION IN NATURE?” Magnetic waves, which always move from the center of the earth into space, overcoming the counter pressure of magnetic compression waves (which always move from space to the center of the earth), at the same time, spray water particles, since moving into space, they increase in volume. That is, expand! In case of overcoming the magnetic waves of compression, these water vapors are compressed (condensed) and under the influence of these magnetic compression forces, the water returns to the ground in the form of precipitation! Sincerely! Alexey Mishnev. October 6, 2012.

Alexey Mishnev. , 06.10.2012 04:19

What is temperature. Temperature is the degree of electromagnetic stress of magnetic waves with the energy of compression and expansion. In the case of an equilibrium state of these energies, the temperature of the body or substance is in a stable state. If the equilibrium state of these energies is disturbed, towards the energy of expansion, the body or substance increases in the volume of space. In case of exceeding the energy of magnetic waves in the direction of compression, the body or substance decreases in the volume of space. The degree of electromagnetic stress is determined by the degree of expansion or contraction of the reference body. Alexey Mishnev.

Moiseeva Natalia, 23.10.2012 11:36 | VNIIM

Alexey, you are talking about some article that outlines your thoughts on the concept of temperature. But no one read it. Please give me a link. In general, your views on physics are very peculiar. I have never heard of "electromagnetic expansion of the reference body".

Yuri Kuznetsov , 04.12.2012 12:32

A hypothesis is proposed that this is the work of intermolecular resonance and the ponderomotive attraction between molecules generated by it. In cold water, molecules move and vibrate randomly, with different frequencies. When water is heated, with an increase in the oscillation frequency, their range narrows (the frequency difference from liquid hot water to the point of vaporization decreases), the oscillation frequencies of the molecules approach each other, as a result of which a resonance occurs between the molecules. When cooled, this resonance is partially preserved, it does not die out immediately. Try pressing one of the two guitar strings that are in resonance. Now let go - the string will begin to vibrate again, the resonance will restore its vibrations. So in frozen water, the outer cooled molecules try to lose the amplitude and frequency of oscillations, but the “warm” molecules inside the vessel “pull” the oscillations back, act as vibrators, and the outer ones act as resonators. It is between the vibrators and the resonators that the ponderomotive attraction* arises. When the ponderomotive force becomes greater than the force caused by the kinetic energy of the molecules (which not only vibrate, but also move linearly), accelerated crystallization occurs - the "Mpemba Effect". The ponderomotive connection is very unstable, the Mpemba effect strongly depends on all accompanying factors: the volume of water to be frozen, the nature of its heating, freezing conditions, temperature, convection, heat exchange conditions, gas saturation, vibration of the refrigeration unit, ventilation, impurities, evaporation, etc. Perhaps even from lighting... Therefore, the effect has a lot of explanations and is sometimes difficult to reproduce. For the same “resonance” reason, boiled water boils faster than unboiled water - resonance for some time after boiling preserves the intensity of vibrations of water molecules (energy loss during cooling is mainly due to the loss of kinetic energy of the linear motion of molecules). With intense heating, vibrator molecules change roles with resonator molecules in comparison with freezing - the frequency of the vibrators is less than the frequency of the resonators, which means that there is not attraction between the molecules, but repulsion, which accelerates the transition to another state of aggregation (pair).

Vlad, 11.12.2012 03:42

Broke my brain...

Anton , 04.02.2013 02:02

1. Is this ponderomotive attraction really so great that it affects the heat transfer process? 2. Does this mean that when all bodies are heated to a certain temperature, their structural particles enter into resonance? 3. Why does this resonance disappear upon cooling? 4. Is this your guess? If there is a source, please indicate. 5. According to this theory, the shape of the vessel will play an important role, and if it is thin and flat, then the difference in freezing time will not be large, i.e. you can check it.

Gudrat , 11.03.2013 10:12 | METAK

Cold water already has nitrogen atoms and the distances between water molecules are closer than in hot water. That is, the conclusion: Hot water absorbs nitrogen atoms faster and at the same time it quickly freezes than cold water - this is comparable to the hardening of iron, since hot water turns into ice and hot iron hardens upon rapid cooling!

Vladimir , 03/13/2013 06:50

or maybe this: the density of hot water and ice is less than the density of cold water, and therefore water does not need to change its density, losing some time on this and it freezes.

Alexey Mishnev , 03/21/2013 11:50 am

Before talking about resonances, attraction and vibrations of particles, it is necessary to understand and answer the question: What forces make particles vibrate? Since, without kinetic energy, there can be no compression. Without compression, there can be no expansion. Without expansion, there can be no kinetic energy! When you start talking about the resonance of strings, you first made an effort to make one of these strings start to vibrate! When talking about attraction, you must first of all indicate the force that makes these bodies attract! I affirm that all bodies are compressed by the electromagnetic energy of the atmosphere and which compresses all bodies, substances and elementary particles with a force of 1.33 kg. not per cm2, but per elementary particle. Since the pressure of the atmosphere cannot be selective! Do not confuse it with the amount of force!

Dodik , 05/31/2013 02:59

It seems to me that you have forgotten one truth - "Science begins where measurements begin." What is the temperature of the "hot" water? What is the temperature of "cold" water? The article doesn't say a word about it. From this we can conclude - the whole article is bullshit!

Grigory, 06/04/2013 12:17

Dodik, before calling an article nonsense, one must think to learn, at least a little. And not just measure.

Dmitry , 12/24/2013 10:57 AM

Hot water molecules move faster than in cold water, because of this there is a closer contact with the environment, they seem to absorb all the cold, quickly slowing down.

Ivan, 10.01.2014 05:53

It is surprising that such an anonymous article appeared on this site. The article is completely unscientific. Both the author and commentators vied with each other in search of an explanation of the phenomenon, not bothering to find out whether the phenomenon is observed at all, and if it is observed, then under what conditions. Moreover, there is not even an agreement on what we actually observe! So the author insists on the need to explain the effect of rapid freezing of hot ice cream, although from the entire text (and the words "the effect was found in experiments with ice cream") it follows that he himself did not set up such experiments. From the variants of "explanation" of the phenomenon listed in the article, it can be seen that completely different experiments are described, set up under different conditions with different aqueous solutions. Both the essence of the explanations and the subjunctive mood in them suggest that even an elementary verification of the ideas expressed was not carried out. Someone accidentally heard a curious story and casually expressed his speculative conclusion. Sorry, but this is not a physical scientific study, but a conversation in a smoking room.

Ivan , 01/10/2014 06:10

Regarding the comments in the article about filling the rollers with hot water and cold washer reservoirs. Everything is simple from the point of view of elementary physics. The skating rink is filled with hot water just because it freezes more slowly. The rink must be level and smooth. Try to fill it with cold water - you will get bumps and "influxes", because. water will _quickly_ freeze without having time to spread in a uniform layer. And the hot one will have time to spread in an even layer, and it will melt the existing ice and snow bumps. With a washer, it’s also not difficult: there is no point in pouring clean water in frost - it freezes on glass (even hot); and hot non-freezing liquid can lead to cracking of cold glass, plus it will have an increased freezing point on the glass due to the accelerated evaporation of alcohols on the way to the glass (is everyone familiar with the principle of operation of the moonshine still? - alcohol evaporates, water remains).

Ivan , 01/10/2014 06:34

But in fact the phenomenon, it is silly to ask why two different experiments in different conditions proceed differently. If the experiment is set up cleanly, then you need to take hot and cold water of the same chemical composition - we take pre-chilled boiling water from the same kettle. Pour into identical vessels (for example, thin-walled glasses). We put not on the snow, but on the same even, dry base, for example, a wooden table. And not in a microfreezer, but in a sufficiently voluminous thermostat - I conducted an experiment a couple of years ago in the country, when there was stable frosty weather outside, about -25C. Water crystallizes at a certain temperature after the release of the heat of crystallization. The hypothesis boils down to the assertion that hot water cools faster (this is true, according to classical physics, the heat transfer rate is proportional to the temperature difference), but maintains an increased cooling rate even when its temperature equals the temperature of cold water. The question is, how does water that has cooled to a temperature of +20C outside differ from exactly the same water that has cooled to a temperature of +20C an hour before, but in a room? Classical physics (by the way, based not on chatter in a smoking room, but on hundreds of thousands and millions of experiments) says: yes, nothing, further cooling dynamics will be the same (only boiling water will reach the +20 point later). And the experiment shows the same thing: when there is already a solid crust of ice in a glass of initially cold water, hot water did not even think of freezing. P.S. To the comments of Yuri Kuznetsov. The presence of a certain effect can be considered established when the conditions for its occurrence are described and it is stably reproduced. And when we have incomprehensible experiments with unknown conditions, it is premature to build theories of their explanation and this does not give anything from a scientific point of view. P.P.S. Well, it’s impossible to read Alexei Mishnev’s comments without tears of emotion - a person lives in some kind of fictional world that has nothing to do with physics and real experiments.

Grigory, 01/13/2014 10:58 AM

Ivan, I understand that you refute the Mpemba effect? It does not exist, as your experiments show? Why is it so famous in physics, and why do many try to explain it?

Ivan , 02/14/2014 01:51

Good afternoon, Gregory! The effect of an impurely staged experiment exists. But, as you understand, this is not a reason to look for new patterns in physics, but a reason to improve the skill of the experimenter. As I already noted in the comments, in all the mentioned attempts to explain the “Mpemba effect”, the researchers cannot even clearly articulate what exactly and under what conditions they are measuring. And you want to say that these are experimental physicists? Do not make me laugh. The effect is known not in physics, but in pseudo-scientific discussions on various forums and blogs, of which the sea is now. As a real physical effect (in the sense as a consequence of some new physical laws, and not as a consequence of an incorrect interpretation or just a myth), people who are far from physics perceive it. So there is no reason to speak as a single physical effect about the results of different experiments set up under completely different conditions.

Pavel, 02/18/2014 09:59

hmm, guys... article for "Speed ​​Info"... No offense... ;) Ivan is right about everything...

Gregory, 02/19/2014 12:50 pm

Ivan, I agree that there are a lot of pseudo-scientific sites publishing unverified sensational material now.? After all, the effect of Mpemba is still being studied. Moreover, scientists from universities are researching. For example, in 2013, this effect was studied by a group from the University of Technology in Singapore. Look at the link http://arxiv.org/abs/1310.6514. They believe they have found an explanation for this effect. I will not write in detail about the essence of the discovery, but in their opinion, the effect is associated with the difference in energies stored in hydrogen bonds.

Moiseeva N.P. , 02/19/2014 03:04

For everyone interested in research on the Mpemba effect, I have slightly supplemented the material of the article and provided links where you can get acquainted with the latest results (see text). Thanks for the comments.

Ildar , 02/24/2014 04:12 | it makes no sense to list everything

If this Mpemba effect really takes place, then the explanation must be sought, I think, in the molecular structure of water. Water (as I learned from the popular science literature) exists not as individual H2O molecules, but as clusters of several molecules (even dozens). With an increase in water temperature, the speed of movement of molecules increases, the clusters break up against each other and the valence bonds of the molecules do not have time to assemble large clusters. It takes a little more time to form clusters than to slow down the speed of molecules. And since the clusters are smaller, the formation of the crystal lattice is faster. In cold water, apparently, large, fairly stable clusters prevent the formation of a lattice; it takes some time for their destruction. I myself saw on TV a curious effect, when cold water standing quietly in a jar remained liquid for several hours in the cold. But as soon as the jar was picked up, that is, slightly moved from its place, the water in the jar immediately crystallized, became opaque, and the jar burst. Well, the priest who showed this effect explained it by the fact that the water was consecrated. By the way, it turns out that water greatly changes its viscosity depending on temperature. We, as large creatures, do not notice this, but at the level of small (mm and less) crustaceans, and even more so bacteria, the viscosity of water is a very significant factor. This viscosity, I think, is also given by the size of the water clusters.

GREY , 03/15/2014 05:30

everything around that we see is surface characteristics (properties), so we take for energy only what we can measure or prove existence in any way, otherwise it is a dead end. This phenomenon, the Mpemba effect, can only be explained by a simple volumetric theory that will unite all physical models into a single structure of interaction. actually it's simple

Nikita, 06/06/2014 04:27 | car

but how to make the water stay cold and not be warm when you go in the car!

alexey, 03.10.2014 01:09

And here is another "discovery", on the go. Water in a plastic bottle freezes much faster with an open stopper. For the sake of fun, I experimented many times in severe frost. The effect is obvious. Hello theorists!

Eugene , 12/27/2014 08:40

The principle of an evaporative cooler. We take two hermetically sealed bottles with cold and hot water. We put it in the cold. Cold water freezes faster. Now we take the same bottles with cold and hot water, open it and put it in the cold. Hot water will freeze faster than cold water. If we take two basins with cold and hot water, then hot water will freeze much faster. This is due to the fact that we increase contact with the atmosphere. The more intense the evaporation, the faster the temperature drop. Here it is necessary to mention the factor of humidity. The lower the humidity, the stronger the evaporation and the stronger the cooling.

gray TOMSK, 03/01/2015 10:55

GREY, 15.03.2014 05:30 - continued What you know about temperature is not everything. There is something else. If you correctly compose a physical model of temperature, then it will become the key to describing energy processes from diffusion, melting and crystallization to such scales as an increase in temperature with an increase in pressure, an increase in pressure with an increase in temperature. Even the physical model of the Sun's energy will become clear from the above. I am in winter. . in the early spring of 20013, after looking at the temperature models, I compiled a general temperature model. After a couple of months, I remembered the temperature paradox, and then I realized ... that my temperature model also describes the Mpemba paradox. This was in May - June 2013. A year late, but that's for the best. My physical model is a freeze frame and it can be scrolled both forward and backward and it has the motor skills of activity, the very activity in which everything moves. I have 8 classes of school and 2 years of college with a repetition of the topic. 20 years have passed. So I can’t ascribe any kind of physical models of famous scientists, as well as formulas. So sorry.

Andrey , 08.11.2015 08:52

In general, I have an idea about why hot water freezes faster than cold water. And in my explanations everything is very simple if you are interested then write me an email: [email protected]

Andrey , 08.11.2015 08:58

I'm sorry, I gave the wrong mailbox here is the correct email: [email protected]

Victor , 12/23/2015 10:37 AM

It seems to me that everything is simpler, snow falls with us, it is evaporated gas, cooled, so maybe in frost it cools faster hot because it evaporates and immediately crystallizes far from rising, and water in a gaseous state cools faster than in liquid)

Bekzhan , 01/28/2016 09:18

Even if someone revealed these laws of the world that are associated with this effect, he would not write here. From my point of view, it would not be logical to reveal his secrets to Internet users when he can publish it in famous scientific journals and prove it himself in front of the people. So, what will be written about this effect here, all this majority is not logical.)))

Alex , 02/22/2016 12:48 PM

Hello Experimenters You are right in saying that Science begins where... not Measurements, but Calculations. "Experiment" - an eternal and indispensable argument for those deprived of Imagination and Linear thinking Offended everyone, now in the case of E \u003d mc2 - does everyone remember? The speed of molecules flying out of cold water into the atmosphere determines the amount of energy they carry away from water (cooling - loss of energy) The speed of molecules from hot water is much higher and the energy carried away is squared (the rate of cooling of the remaining mass of water) That's all, if you leave from " experimentation" and remember the Basics of Science

Vladimir , 04/25/2016 10:53 AM | Meteo

In those days when antifreeze was a rarity, the water from the cooling system of cars in an unheated garage of a car fleet was drained after a working day so as not to defrost the cylinder block or radiator - sometimes both together. Hot water was poured in the morning. In severe frost, the engines started without problems. Somehow, due to the lack of hot water, water was poured from the tap. The water immediately froze. The experiment was expensive - exactly as much as it costs to buy and replace the cylinder block and radiator of a ZIL-131 car. Who does not believe, let him check. and Mpemba experimented with ice cream. In ice cream, crystallization proceeds differently than in water. Try biting off a piece of ice cream and a piece of ice with your teeth. Most likely it did not freeze, but thickened as a result of cooling. And fresh water, whether it is hot or cold, freezes at 0*C. Cold water is fast, but hot water needs time to cool.

Wanderer , 06.05.2016 12:54 | to Alex

"c" - speed of light in vacuum E=mc^2 - formula expressing the equivalence of mass and energy

Albert , 07/27/2016 08:22

First, an analogy with solids (there is no evaporation process). Recently soldered copper water pipes. The process occurs by heating the gas burner to the melting temperature of the solder. The heating time of one joint with the coupling is approximately one minute. I soldered one joint with the coupling and after a couple of minutes I realized that I soldered it wrong. It took a little to scroll the pipe in the coupling. I began to heat the joint again with a burner and, surprisingly, it took 3-4 minutes to heat the joint to the melting point. How so!? After all, the pipe is still hot and it would seem that much less energy is needed to heat it to the melting point, but everything turned out to be the opposite. It's all about the thermal conductivity, which is much higher for an already heated pipe and the boundary between the heated and cold pipes managed to move far from the junction in two minutes. Now about water. We will operate with the concepts of hot and semi-heated vessel. In a hot vessel, a narrow temperature boundary is formed between hot, highly mobile particles and slow-moving, cold ones, which moves relatively quickly from the periphery to the center, because at this boundary, fast particles quickly give up their energy (cool) by particles on the other side of the boundary. Since the volume of the outer cold particles is larger, the fast particles, giving up their thermal energy, cannot significantly heat up the outer cold particles. Therefore, the process of cooling hot water occurs relatively quickly. Semi-heated water, on the other hand, has a much lower thermal conductivity, and the width of the boundary between semi-heated and cold particles is much wider. The displacement to the center of such a wide boundary occurs much more slowly than in the case of a hot vessel. As a result, a hot vessel cools faster than a warm one. I think it is necessary to follow the dynamics of the cooling process of water of different temperatures by placing several temperature sensors from the middle to the edge of the vessel.

Max , 11/19/2016 05:07

It has been verified: in Yamal, in frost, a pipe with hot water freezes and it has to be warmed up, but not cold!

Artem, 09.12.2016 01:25

It is difficult, but I think that cold water is denser than hot water, even better than boiled water, and then there is an acceleration in cooling, i.e. hot water reaches the cold temperature and overtakes it, and if you take into account the fact that hot water freezes from below and not from above, as written above, this speeds up the process a lot!

Alexander Sergeev, 21.08.2017 10:52

There is no such effect. Alas. In 2016, a detailed article on the topic was published in Nature: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mpemba_effect From it it is clear that if the experiments are carried out carefully (if the samples of warm and cold water are the same in everything except temperature), the effect is not observed .

Headlab, 08/22/2017 05:31

Victor , 10/27/2017 03:52 AM

"It really is." - if the school did not understand what heat capacity and the law of conservation of energy are. It's easy to check - for this you need: a desire, a head, hands, water, a refrigerator and an alarm clock. And the skating rinks, as experts write, are frozen (filled) with cold water, and with warm water they level the cut ice. And in the winter you need to pour anti-freeze fluid into the washer reservoir, not water. Water will freeze anyway, and cold water will freeze faster.

Irina , 01/23/2018 10:58

Scientists all over the world have been struggling with this paradox since the time of Aristotle, and Viktor, Zavlab and Sergeev turned out to be the smartest.

Denis , 02/01/2018 08:51

Everything is right in the article. But the reason is somewhat different. In the process of boiling, the air dissolved in it is evaporated from the water, therefore, as the boiling water cools, as a result, its density will be less than that of raw water of the same temperature. There are no other reasons for different thermal conductivity except for different density.

Headlab, 03/01/2018 08:58 | head lab

Irina :), "scientists of the whole world" do not fight this "paradox", for real scientists this "paradox" simply does not exist - this is easily verified in well-reproducible conditions. The "paradox" appeared due to the irreproducible experiments of the African boy Mpemba and was inflated by similar "scientists" :)