Originally posted by Soothfast Cold water freezes faster. Why? Before hot water can freeze it first has to become cold water.
I made that mistake over in Spirituality. There's something called the Mpemba effect, first noticed by a Tanzanian school student called Erasto Mpemba, there are various ideas as to why this should be so. The latest theory is that it is something to do with hydrogen bonds. The effect is not consistent. There is no doubt about it, water is weird stuff.
Originally posted by DeepThought I made that mistake over in Spirituality. There's something called the Mpemba effect, first noticed by a Tanzanian school student called Erasto Mpemba, there are various ideas as to why this should be so. The latest theory is that it is something to do with hydrogen bonds. The effect is not consistent. There is no doubt about it, water is weird stuff.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mpemba_effect
"The Mpemba Effect, named after Erasto Mpemba, is the observation that, in some circumstances".
Quite.
In general, though, cold water freezes faster than hot.