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A fresh understanding of the Mpemba effect

Nature Reviews Physics volume 3, pages 534–535 (2021)Cite this article

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Anecdotal but elusive reports suggest that hot water quenched in a cold container can sometimes begin to freeze sooner than warm water under similar initial conditions. John Bechhoefer and colleagues discuss recent experiments that show how this ‘Mpemba effect’ can be reliably reproduced and quantitatively understood.

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Fig. 1: Illustration of the Mpemba effect.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada

    John Bechhoefer & Avinash Kumar

  2. Department of Cell Biology, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA

    Avinash Kumar

  3. Laboratoire J A Dieudonné, UMR CNRS 7351, Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis, Nice, France

    Raphaël Chétrite

Authors
  1. John Bechhoefer
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  2. Avinash Kumar
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  3. Raphaël Chétrite
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Correspondence to John Bechhoefer.

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Bechhoefer, J., Kumar, A. & Chétrite, R. A fresh understanding of the Mpemba effect. Nat Rev Phys 3, 534–535 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-021-00349-8

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