Hot Water Freezes Either Faster or Slower Than Cold Water

The Mpemba Effect happens when hot water freezes quicker than room temperature water, or does it? Alex goes on an exhaustive journey to replicate the Mpemba effect and hits a few snags on the way, including a paper being released the week this video was supposed to come out. Does this paper finally resolve all existing ambiguities about measuring relaxation speeds in the Mpemba Effect? Well, it claims to.

Producers:
Andrew Sobey
Elaine Seward
Darren Weaver

Writer:
Alex Dainis, Ph.D.

Hosts:
Alex Dainis, Ph.D.

Executive Producer:
Matthew Radcliff

Scientific Consultants:
Anne Hylden, MS
Brianne Raccor, Ph.D.
Henry Burridge, Ph.D.
John Bechhoefer, Ph.D.
Leila Duman, Ph.D.

Executive in Charge for PBS: Maribel Lopez
Director of Programming for PBS: Gabrielle Ewing
Assistant Director of Programming for PBS: John Campbell

Reactions is a production of the American Chemical Society.
© 2025 American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.

Sources:
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10...
https://sci-hub.ru/10.1088/0031-9120/...
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs....
https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract...
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35078...
https://physicsworld.com/a/does-hot-w...
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles...
https://www.quantamagazine.org/does-h...
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs....
https://rmf.smf.mx/ojs/index.php/rmf/...