The Misappliance Of Science

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Ice Ice Baby

Debunked: You can make as much ice faster by starting with warmer water.

You will get ice faster by using warmer water than you will with colder water. You're just not going to get as much ice.

Hot water evaporates while freezing. The result is approximately 75% of ice, produced in 90% of time, compared to cold water. Although evaporation does have a cooling effect, the main reason for the shorter time is that there is less water to freeze. A smaller quantity of water will freeze faster than a larger quantity, that's all there is to it.

True: Boiled water freezes faster than ordinary water at same initial temperature.

Boiled water has all the dissolved air driven out of it. This difference between boiled water and non-boiled water is sufficient to show a difference the freezing rates between the two types of water, all other things being equal.

References:

"Hot water freezes faster than cold water. Why does it do so?", Jearl Walker in The Amateur Scientist, Scientific American, Vol. 237, No. 3, pp 246-257 September, 1977

"The Freezing of Hot and Cold Water", G.S. Kell in American Journal of Physics, Vol. 37, No. 5, pp 564-565 May, 1969.

References:

• http://tafkac.org/science/hot_water_freezes_faster.html