Hot water freezes faster than cold - and now we think we know why.

Hot water seems to freeze faster than cold water, known as the Mpemba effect. The effect was named after the Tanzanian student who in 1963 noticed that hot ice cream mix freezes faster than a cold one. The effect was first observed by Aristotle in the 4th century BC, then later Francis Bacon and Ren Descartes. Mpemba published a paper on his findings in 1969.

[…]

Now a team of physicists from the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, led by Xi Zhang, have found evidence that it is the chemical bonds that hold water together that provide the effect.

[…]

They propose that when the water molecules are brought into close contact, a natural repulsion between the molecules causes the covalent bonds to stretch and store energy. When the liquid warms up, the hydrogen bonds stretch as the water gets less dense and the molecules move further apart.

The stretching in the hydrogen bonds allows the covalent bonds to relax and shrink somewhat, which causes them to give up their energy. The process of covalent bonds giving up their energy is essentially the same as cooling, and so warm water should in theory cool faster than cold. The team’s calculations suggest that the magnitude of the covalent bond relaxation accounts for the experimental differences in the time it takes for hot and cold water to freeze.

Science rules.