Wow, that is so cool, I never knew that. Now I wanna try it. (if only I could find a place big and cold enough)
How so? Hot water is "looser" than cold water, which makes its temperature more easily changed. Take that to its logical conclusion and that means it can also change forms more easily because the heat in it can dissipate more quickly. That's how it makes sense to me, anyway. How would that do anything? Is the temperature on top of the freezer colder than in the freezer?
Actually there's no known reason for this effect(Mpemba Effect). So many explanations have been offered. It doesn't always happen. Obviously if you have boiling water and nearly freezing water, the boiling water won't freeze first.
This isn't totally accurate. A given substance has a capacity to absorb heat per unit mass (specific heat) that is only really dependent upon phase (i.e. solid, liquid, or gas). While the specific heat would realistically change a little bit as temperature changes, it would give you pretty much no change as far as energy and heat calculations go until an actual phase change happens; it definitely wouldn't account for the difference in the two different water samples in this experiment. This is because when a substance undergoes a phase change, all the energy input or output is used to increase or decrease the substance's potential energy, changing its capacity to store heat. But you are right in saying that the "looser" the phase, the less energy it takes to change its temperature (e.g. most liquids change temperature to a higher degree than their solid phase when the same amount of energy is added to both).
