• Question: Why does boiling water freeze quicker than warm?

    Asked by wizzyg12 to Rob, Claire on 19 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Robert Woolfson

      Robert Woolfson answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      As simply as that question sounds, it’s actually a mystery. Water is rarely pure, and is often a very complex system with loads of different things in it. To test the freezing rate of water would require controlling a huge number of different things.

      Even the existence of this effect is very controversial. The Royal Society of Chemistry held a competition to try and figure this out, the link below contains the details of the winning entry for more information.

      http://www.rsc.org/mpemba-competition/mpemba-winner.asp

Comments