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People who think 'hot water freezes faster than cold' have never actually tried it with a stopwatch
I ran a test with two identical ice trays last month, timing both from tap to solid, and the cold water tray froze in 2 hours 14 minutes while the hot one took 3 hours 48 minutes, so where did this myth even come from and has anyone else debunked it with real numbers?
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fiona_kim1mo ago
The part where you said "the cold water tray froze in 2 hours 14 minutes while the hot one took 3 hours 48 minutes" sounds like you tested from tap to solid, but the real trick is that hot water cools down fast at first and then slows down along the way. I did a similar test with thermometers and found the hot water dropped below freezing quicker in the first hour, but the cold water had less total temperature to lose so it won in the end. People always forget that the hot water method is about the time to start forming ice, not the full solid freeze time.
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ray_williams1mo ago
Only thing nobody checks is if the freezer temp changed when you opened the door for the hot tray.
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