Crazy Facts

COLDWATER WEIGHS MORE THAN HOT WATER

A liter of cold water will weigh more than a liter of hot water. Most liquids, not all, become heavier as they grow colder. The answer all boils down, nay cools down, to density. The colder the water is, the denser it is. Density will generally determine the weight of two liquids with the same volume. It is quantified by mass divided by volume, and here on our planet Earth, mass is the same as weight. In the case of water, aka H2O, the weight is measured by the number of H2O (2 parts hydrogen, 1 part oxygen) molecules present in a given volume.

So, assuming you have two bottles-each one liter-and, you fill one with cold water and the other with hot, you will notice that the cold water bottle is a bit heavier than its counterpart. The reason is that molecules in hot water are spaced further apart, and this means fewer molecules are present in any given volume, leading to less mass or weight if you rather.

Hot vs. Cold Water: Boiling Experiment

Purpose:

This experiment aims to find out whether hot water or cold water will start to boil first if heated under the same conditions.

Hypothesis:

Common sense would yield that the hotter the water, the quicker it should boil because it is already closer to the boiling point. Still, the hypothesis of this experiment will stray away from such nonsense and contend that the colder water will boil before the hot water because the rate of temperature will increase faster than the hot water and ultimately pass it up.

Equipment:

This experiment will require a pot, a heat source (Stove), a measuring cup, a stopwatch, a cooling source (fridge), pen and paper, a source to get hot and cold water, a tea bag, and coffee cup optional.

Procedure:

The first step is to measure out three cups of water and place them in the refrigerator to chill. Then measure out 3 cups of hot tap water place in the pot, and turn on the flame while starting the stopwatch. When boiling occurs, stop the watch record the time. Dry the pot, and allow it to return to room temperature. Repeat the same process once cold water has been allowed to chill, record results, and compare.

Observations:

Water Type: the amount of time water took to boil

Hot Tap Water 3 Cups, 3 minutes, 4 seconds

Cold Tap Water 3 Cups, 4 minutes, 17 seconds

The room temperature was at 69 degrees Fahrenheit, and the barometer was registering 30.21 inches.

Conclusion:

The experiment has shown that common sense again prevails, and hot water boils much quicker than cold water.

WHY IS HOT WATER ALWAYS ON THE LEFT SIDE

Back in the 19th century, when indoor plumbing was first introduced, a hand pump brought water into the home. At the time, there was only one option that came out of the hand pump: cold water. Since most people were and still are right-handed, the pump was installed on the right side of the sink.

Instant hot water was introduced many years later. With the cold water pump already occupying the right side of the sink or tub, the logical place to put the hot water faucet was on the left side of the cold water faucet. There you have it!

HOT WATER CAN FREEZE FASTER THAN COLD WATER

This phenomenon has been observed for centuries but was not properly introduced to the scientific community until 1969. Since that time, it has commonly been referred to as the Mpemba effect, named after the Nigerian high school student who rediscovered this back in the '60s.

Mpemba first noticed this in 1963 when making ice cream for a school project. The students mixed boiling milk with sugar and were told to cool it before refrigerating it. Impatient, Mpemba disregarded directions and put his milk in immediately without letting it cool. Inexplicably, his milk cooled before the rest of the class! But, his physics teacher said this was not possible.

He later found that the local ice cream vendors did the same thing to speed up the freezing process! Mpemba was still criticized at school for his "bogus" science, even though he had hard evidence to back his theory up. Later, a physics professor visited the high school and heard what Mpemba had to say. He replicated the process and couldn't explain the phenomenon, so he and Mpemba published their results in 1969.