Mpemba Effect
QUOTE
Albert Szent-Györgyi once said…
“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.”
(Hungarian biochemist.)
CONCEPT
Mpemba Effect
The Mpemba Effect is a counterintuitive phenomenon where, under certain conditions, hot water freezes faster than cold water.
While this may seem illogical at first glance, it has been observed and studied for centuries. The exact reasons behind the effect remain a topic of debate among scientists, but factors such as evaporation, convection currents, and the properties of water molecules at different temperatures are thought to play a role.
The Mpemba Effect serves as a reminder that even everyday occurrences can hold surprising complexities.
STORY
Ice, Ice … Maybe?
In 1963, a young Tanzanian student named Erasto Mpemba was in his secondary school kitchen preparing ice cream when he noticed something peculiar.
He observed that when he placed a hot mixture into the freezer, it seemed to freeze faster than a cold mixture placed in at the same time. This observation puzzled him, as it contradicted the common belief that colder liquids should freeze more quickly.
Intrigued by his findings, Mpemba approached his science teacher, who dismissed the idea outright, assuming that the young boy must have made a mistake. However, Mpemba’s curiosity was not easily squashed.
He continued to repeat the experiment, consistently observing the same result: the hot liquid froze faster than the cold.
Undeterred by the skepticism of others, Mpemba shared his findings with Dr. Denis Osborne, a visiting physicist from the University of Dar es Salaam. Together, they conducted experiments to test the phenomenon under controlled conditions.
To their surprise, the results confirmed what Mpemba had observed: under specific circumstances, hot water did indeed freeze faster than cold.
This discovery led to the publication of their findings in 1969, and the phenomenon became known as the Mpemba Effect. Since then, scientists have proposed various theories to explain the effect, though it remains a topic of ongoing research and debate.