Why you can hear the temperature of water

[Tanoc]

This is something I noticed as a kid. We had a creek in our backyard, which,depending on the temperature the water would be louder or quieter. This annoyed our dog, which after a number of times caused me to notice. Running water is louder and much more sharp when it's cold out, and quieter and muffled when it's hot out. In the same way sounds are louder in a colder environment because there's already a low level of ambient energy contained in the air and so the energy disperses much more readily but dissipates much more quickly. Essentially a difference between a quick "crack" and a lingering "whump" in terms of auditory impact. This effect also propagates to solid materials, as cold metals and ceramics transmit sound better than warm ceramics or metals. A church bell quite literally is louder on a cold winter's day.

[Loughla]

There is nothing like a small waterfall in a deep snow on a snowy day. All other sound is muffled by the snow cover and further dampened by the falling snow.

But the creek will ring like a bell. You can't hear it until you're almost on top of it. It's higher pitched, and will almost always have a tempo based on the shape of the bed of the falls.

There's a waterfall on our farm. It plays music in January. It's amazing, and no one believes me.

[axxl]

My thought on the general "loudness" of cold months was due to reduced noise blocking or absorbing greenery like tree leaves, grass, etc. Which is then altered by a significant snowfall leading to sounds being softened again.

[quesera]

Could the audible difference be related to varying sound propagation through hot/humid vs cold/dry air?

[nico]

Thank you for the great anecdote and explanation, it was fun an very illustrative to visualize the concepts while reading your comment

[wolverine876]

You controlled for the volume / depth of water, which for the same mass would be greater when warmer, and the resulting changed interaction with objects ...?

[golergka]

I wonder how well it maps to notions of a “cold reverb” or “warm synth” in music production.

[animal531]

As the article mentions, most people know how to tell the difference by sound but if you were to ask them they would say no, it's impossible.

That just makes me wonder how many other things there are that people subconsciously learns, without it ever becoming obviously noticeable for them?

[Wistar]

When running some water to warm up before turning on the shower head, I can tell when the hot water has arrived by the distinct change in the sound as it splashes on the shower basin. The splash sounds soften when the water starts to run hot.

[apitman]

This is the same context where I noticed this. One of those weird things that would be really easy to google but I never did. Wasn't expected to get that random mystery solved today but I'll take it!

[dtgriscom]

I've heard this as the shower warms up while spraying at the (plastic) shower curtain. However, I thought that it was because the plastic gets more flexible as things warm up.

[PaulHoule]

Archived: https://archive.ph/ITRzw

[jerbear4328]

And the audio clip (which doesn't work on the archive): https://static.nytimes.com/podcasts/2024/05/09/science/09tb-...

[anfractuosity]

Someone appears to have made an android app to attempt to distinguish temperature from sound of pour - https://petter.saterskog.com/ai-thermometer/index.htm

I thought I'd heard the 'stickiness' of the water affects how it sounds. Not sure if that is stiction or something else.

[GistNoesis]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri_4dDvcZeM

[kinow]

I thought I wouldn't be able to tell the difference, but when he told me to pause the video to try to guess, I listened to the audio of pouring water again, and thought about "which one sounds like when I pour tea", and that way I could identify the warm/cold water. Interesting!

[mikewarot]

I noticed the sound when making hot chocolate for my child. I figured there are a number of things at play... the leidenfrost effect when the water hits the much hotter edge above the waterline in a kettle(not in this video), the air over the hot water being more humid (and thus lighter), the much higher vapor pressure, the difference in surface tension, the dissolving of the hot chocolate powder, etc.

Viscosity isn't something I considered... but it makes sense.

[jaredhallen]

I can definitely hear when the shower gets hot. Cool to have some explanation behind it.

[KineticLensman]

Likewise. My shower takes quite a long time to run hot, and I can usually hear when it has reached the point where it is no longer too uncomfortable to get in.

[philipswood]

Yeah, my shower takes a a while to run hot, so I also listen for when the water is ready.

[neltnerb]

It took a while to find the original source files [i.e. the ones the author published as supplementary information]

Includes raw recordings as well as actual raw results for those of us without NYT subscriptions.

https://osf.io/brp2a/?view_only=7f49783ebbf646b29af32ca64524...

Audio comparison video, the fun part for me anyway.

https://osf.io/brp2a/files/osfstorage/62fe7d9da06acd0f5b2db3...

[inglor_cz]

Absolutely, yes. Pouring hot water into a cup sounds very different from pouring cold water into a cup. Even the flow looks visibly different, hot water is a lot more "lively". Noticed this as a kid, never made a mistake.

[is_true]

also the sound the cup makes when you hit it with a spoon while stirring

[Modified3019]

From personal experience, walking on snow/ice sounds different based on temperature. From my time of walking to work at 6am in Michigan when I was younger, I could tell the temperature in approximately 10 degree F increments based on the sound. At least between 30F to -10F

[galaxyLogic]

This is a well-known phenomenon in Nordic countries I believe. There is a verb "narskua" in Finnish which is only used to describe the sound of walking on snow in below freezing temperatures.

Google AI tells me:

"The Finnish word narskua translates to "crunch" or "scrunch" in English. It's an onomatopoetic verb that describes the sound snow makes when you step on it in very cold temperatures"

[zulban]

There's definitely many, many different sounds of snow and ice based on temperature, and probably humidity, pressure, etc. Or what those conditions were 2 days ago when the snow fell, what they were yesterday, and what they are now. I live in Canada, Québec so maybe that makes me some kind of subjective authority.

[apitman]

As someone from Arizona I learned relatively late in life that ~15F is when my nose hairs start to freeze.

[_delirium]

Link to the preprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.14740

[throwaway2562]

Can anyone explain why hot water tastes different to cold water? Is taste not separable from temperature or is there another mechanism at work?

[Arn_Thor]

Taste is absolutely linked with temperature. Cold vs hot coffee for example. Don’t know exactly why. Most things tend to taste “more” when hot. Could be the intensity of molecular activity, which is what temperature is, that varies and so registers more or less strongly with our taste preceptors

[ruined]

it makes sense to me that the chemistry of taste would be very sensitive to temperature. but often, heated water has more substances in solution

[hkpack]

A lot of things at play.

1) We actually can sense "coldness" or "hotness" as separate tastes. Think about mint candies or pepper for example.

2) Our receptors have different sensitivity based on the temperature. For example cold sweet drink feels much less sweet. That's why warm cola is disgustingly sweet for example.

And water does contain a lot of dissolved salts which have a taste.

3) More than half of the taste we feel is actually coming from the smell, and warm water contains more vapour, and therefore, more smell.

So our brain takes all these inputs from different sources and synthesises the feeling of taste in our brain.

Source of this knowledge is from: https://www.cookingforgeeks.com

[datameta]

I would imagine it has with the biomechanics of our tongue as it relates to available dissolved minerals.

[bassrattle]

Just look at the inside of any water heater. Usually disgusting! This is why we heat cold water up when we cook, rather than start with hot water

[4RealFreedom]

I read about the viscosity difference in hot/cold water a while back. Every time I think about it while drinking water, I put my water down. I don't know why it bothers me so much but it does. I feel like I peered into the eyes of God and can never return to normal life.

[ethanholt1]

Humans can sense quite a few strange things. Like the smell of rain up to 100 parts per trillion.

[jval43]

Petrichor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrichor

[kj4ips]

I was taught to listen to the sound the water made in the sink to tell when the hot was ready. I had always assumed this was something most folks already knew about.

[eimrine]

Do you know how to download sound from nytimes.com? I can show the article on the website (not on archive one) and I would like to analyze the sound in audio software.

[perilunar]

If you wade through the (incredibly verbose) HTML you can eventually find a script with the source for the audio file, which is:

https://static.nytimes.com/podcasts/2024/05/09/science/09tb-...

[extragood]

It's easy enough to reproduce - may as well run a quick experiment and record that.

[kosolam]

Let us know the results please

[novaRom]

Also hard vs soft water may sound different, not just carbonated water. Soft water feels smoother and silkier on the skin because it contains less minerals.

[michaelcampbell]

I always thought I could do this but hadn't admitted it to anyone because of its preposterousness. Huh.

[amelius]

Yes, for sure, but at what resolution?