[marlor]

That’s precisely the approach taken in studying the Mpemba effect, with wildly differing results.

The article goes into the difficulties in analysing out-of-equilibrium systems (both experimentally and theoretically).

[vaidhy]

I did read the article and interestingly, I learnt we do not know a lot about phase transitions. Even more interesting, why would hot and cold water reach 0'c almost at the same time (according to one of the experiments)? If the rate of cooling were same, we would expect hot water to be tepid when cold water is 0'c.

Btw, I have seen similar experiments in really cold climates, where a cup of hot water thrown freezes immediately, but cold water does not.

Anyways, I am always one for running the experiments :)

[semi-extrinsic]

> Btw, I have seen similar experiments in really cold climates, where a cup of hot water thrown freezes immediately, but cold water does not.

IIRC this is because the surface tension of hot water is significantly lower, so the thrown hot water disintegrates into much smaller droplets, which freeze more quickly.