We have a dorm fridge at work, every night i put my water bottle in the freezer section. every afternoon when i take it out it’s liquid, until i shake it, which is when it freezes. what is the reason it does that? something to do with air?
Its called supercooling. When undisturbed you can cool water below freezing with out actually freezing. It will start to freeze when disturbed or when a crystallized form is added.
I used to do this with beer bottles to mess with my friends when they wanted a beer.
Youtube it, a bunch of videos are on there.
You can also do it when boiling
Hmm… Cavitation bubbles causing localized low pressure zones where the water begins to crystalize, spreading throughout the bottle?
[quote=“Mixmastermike,post:2,topic:32688"”]
I used to do this with beer bottles to mess with my friends when i they wanted a beer.
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That’s not funny…
the water is to pure to freeze, just like water can be to pure to boil
shaking induces air, an impurity, and hence the water THEN freezes
so if you were to just crack the seal it would instantly freeze?
Nope
I still am not following how you can do this. YOu just leave liquid sitting still in a closed container and chill it really cold. Once its shaken and exposed to air it will freeze up?
exactly, the bottle lies on it’s side all night, and won’t freeze. then when i shake it the air bubbles freeze and if you shake it slowly enough you can watch the bottle solidify top to bottom over a few seconds.
This actually works GREAT with flavored smirnoff. Throw a few in the freezer overnight, pop the cap and pour, and it solidifies as it hits the glass, and if you get a stream of it, it will start to freeze in the bottle ( will turn in to a thick opaque slush, solid ice)
sorta, basically everyone got it right already. there arent enough minerals in the water to disturb the hydrogen bonding between the water even though its cold enough to freeze. Also the bottle is so smooth that the water molecules prefer to bond to each other than to the bottle. IF you were to scratch/nick the inside of your bottle this would give the water a spot to start crystalizing which would then form its secondary structure in a crystaline lattice formation… ice. also you could try to drop a grain of salt or something into the supercooled water and it would also cause rearrangement of the molecules and immediate formation of ice, or boiling if the water is hot. there were lawsuits about this agains pyrex a few years ago because some of their glassware is so perfect that if you microwave water for say 4min so it is hot enough to boil, the same principle would happen and the water would look normal, but as soon as you agitated it or put a spoon into it etc, it would boil immediately spraying people with boiling hot water…
[quote=“speedracer329,post:11,topic:32688"”]
sorta, basically everyone got it right already. there arent enough minerals in the water to disturb the hydrogen bonding between the water even though its cold enough to freeze. Also the bottle is so smooth that the water molecules prefer to bond to each other than to the bottle. IF you were to scratch/nick the inside of your bottle this would give the water a spot to start crystalizing which would then form its secondary structure in a crystaline lattice formation… ice. also you could try to drop a grain of salt or something into the supercooled water and it would also cause rearrangement of the molecules and immediate formation of ice, or boiling if the water is hot. there were lawsuits about this agains pyrex a few years ago because some of their glassware is so perfect that if you microwave water for say 4min so it is hot enough to boil, the same principle would happen and the water would look normal, but as soon as you agitated it or put a spoon into it etc, it would boil immediately spraying people with boiling hot water…
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ahhhh i remember the lawsuits. esp with coffee. people would boil water in the cups in the microwave and it wouldnt boil but as soon as they reached in and grabbed the cup it literally blew up. they always said to put a spoon or something in it.
makes sense now.
[quote=“boxxa,post:12,topic:32688"”]
ahhhh i remember the lawsuits. esp with coffee. people would boil water in the cups in the microwave and it wouldnt boil but as soon as they reached in and grabbed the cup it literally blew up. they always said to put a spoon or something in it.
makes sense now.
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I had this happen to me one morning, boiled the water in the micro then took it out and was gonna put in some powdered coffee and man did it ever flash boil and erupt as soon as the spoon touched the water. The water didnt even look like it was hot at all either