Abstract— “An explanation for why hot water will sometime freeze more rapidly than cold water is offered. Two specimens of water from the same source will often have different spontaneous freezing temperatures; that is, the temperature at which freezing begins. When both specimens supercool and the spontaneous freezing temperature of the hot water is higher than that of the cold water, then the hot water will usually freeze first, if all other conditions are equal and remain so during cooling. The probability that the hot water will freeze first if it has the higher spontaneous freezing temperature will be larger for a larger difference in spontaneous freezing temperature. The keys to observing hot water freezing before cold water are supercooling the water and having a significant difference in the spontaneous freezing temperature of the two water specimens”. We observed in the experiment that the container of hot water is in better thermal contact with the freezer floor than the container of the cold water and heat will now …show more content…
Does it mean, is it related to the latent heat of freezing, or the appearance of the first ice crystal or the solidification of the last bit of liquid water? If you selected one of the above as your answer, how would you observe the time at which that event occurred in a specimen of water? For example, in Fig. 3, how long did it take for the water to freeze? Now, imagine that we have combined the results from eight different laboratories in which everything was identical, except for the positions of the thermocouples in the water. In this case, each laboratory would report a different time of freezing. These differences were a major barrier to obtaining reproducible results during the early phase of this study. A difference in position of only a few millimeters can be significant depending on the size of the container”