What is Digg?154 Comments
- naner, on 08/22/2008, -4/+162Growing up in Nebraska, there wasn't much to do. Ever. So in the Winter, my older brother and I would convince our dad to help us build a sled ramp off of the top of the shed in the back yard. So we bought the 2x4s and plywood and made a ~20 foot long "slide" from the shed down to the back yard. We tried to pack snow on it but the snow wasn't quite the right consistency, so we decided to make layer after layer of ice on the whole ramp. We would go inside and fill up pitchers of water and bring it up to the roof and slowly pour it down the ramp. It was cold enough to start making ice. HOURS of this went by and we started to have a good inch+ of ice on most of the ramp. One of our neighbors (and my brother's classmate) stopped by and told us that hot water freezes faster than cold water. SO I went inside and filled a pitcher with the hottest water that came from our tap. I poured it down the slide and.... most of my damned ice melted. I kicked the kid in the shins and ran back inside. Turns out he was right, but the fact just wasn't relevant to our situation.
- lthdig, on 08/22/2008, -1/+121This is an awesome story. Ramp of ice, scalding hot water, an unexpected plot twist, and a violent ending.
- GhandicapXRS, on 08/22/2008, -7/+78That's fine and all, but how does water transform a Mogwai into a Gremlin?
- exformation, on 08/22/2008, -27/+84Buried for homeopathy.
- Merendino, on 08/22/2008, -1/+50The news guy throwing boiling water into the -37 degree weather to create instant snow was ***** amazing.
- ThantiK, on 08/22/2008, -3/+43Interesting fact about water: Water BY ITSELF doesn't conduct electricity. Add salt, or other impurities, and it does. They actually wash motherboards, and processors in de-ionized/purified water during the manufacturing process.
- Stupidumb, on 08/22/2008, -2/+40Doesn't water also expand when frozen?
- WMGoBuffs, on 08/22/2008, -2/+21More like there is ***** in the elements of Dr. Emoto. That whole movie has been endlessly debunked, especially the part with the crazy woman channeling the 15000 year old spirits (watch the credits).
- Mootabolife, on 08/22/2008, -1/+16"From Concentrate"
But how does it melt wicked witches? - jbmcb, on 08/22/2008, -0/+15Why is a single unverified experiment #5? Just because a boatload of homeopaths believe that water has a memory, and a single, non-reproducible experiment showed it did, does not make it so.
- naner, on 08/22/2008, -0/+15Disco...You mean that whole thing the article was about?
- LucasVB, on 08/22/2008, -5/+20Ditto. It's important to stress that the results of that experiment are completely meaningless if they could not be reproduced independently. That's how science works, folks.
- caracter2, on 08/22/2008, -0/+14How does it kill crop-circle-building aliens?
- gvetterick, on 08/22/2008, -2/+16all materials have this, water is no exception (look up "phase diagram" you'll see and while you're at it, look up metallic glasses).
Supercooling and the hotter liquid freezing first => used for many metal processes
quantum properties=> everything's got weird properties at the quantum level
memory properties => look up memory metals, there's probably some cool vids
ice spikes => look up "tin whiskers"
instant snow => basically the method used for some powder metallurgy and other chemical reactions..
still, cool article - caracter2, on 08/22/2008, -1/+14He's been challenged to repeat the experiment under the scrutiny of real scientists and offered a substantial monetary reward if his findings are indeed true.
http://www.randi.org/jr/052303.html
So far however, he has not taken up the challenge... I wonder why?.... Oh wait, here comes the "It won't work if you don't believe" comeback, in 3, 2..... - jax0047, on 08/22/2008, -4/+17Hot water freezes faster than cold water? I wold call ***** but I did see a spike in my ice cube tray once, so now I have to believe the whole article is true.
- smurfsahoy, on 08/22/2008, -2/+15Most of the effect is due to oversights and imperfections in badly done experiments. For instance, a container of hot water will melt through the ice that has built up on the trays in your freezer, and from then on, there is more efficient cooling in that container, so it ends up freezing faster - but that's not a property of water.
Or if the water was boiling first, then it will have lost most or all of the dissolved gas that is in tap water, so its freezing point will be higher than the cold tap water to begin with. Also not a property of water at work.
However, in controlled laboratory conditions, that take into account the evaporation effects mentioned above, insulation effects, dissolved solute effects, etc. etc. there is indeed STILL a TIIIIINY effect within a very narrow range where warmer water will freeze faster than cooler water, and there is no universally accepted explanation. - luckyguy2000, on 08/22/2008, -11/+23buried for being homeopathy positive and thus being inaccurate
- smurfsahoy, on 08/22/2008, -0/+11No, he is just plain wrong. Unless he has observed something that nobody else has. Freezing yes, boiling no, as far as I've ever seen, and I've read a lot about this. (And by boiling no, I mean most explanations of the freezing effect go out of their way to point out that boiling does NOT do the same thing).
- Stupidumb, on 08/22/2008, -2/+13"5 Really Weird Things About Water"
I'm trying so hard to find the part where it says 'unique', but I can't. Let me read it again:
"5 Really Weird Things About Water"
No, still can't find it, but what do I know, I'm Stupidumb. - papastout, on 08/22/2008, -1/+12The Truth about DIHYDROGEN MONOXIDE
Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) is perhaps the single most prevalent of all chemicals that can be dangerous to human life. Despite this truth, most people are not unduly concerned about the dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide. Governments, civic leaders, corporations, military organizations, and citizens in every walk of life seem to either be ignorant of or shrug off the truth about Dihydrogen Monoxide as not being applicable to them. - cJw314, on 08/22/2008, -1/+11...I think you need to go watch Gremlins again, GhandicapXRS.
Food changed the Mogwai into Gremlins, not water. O.o - Hanny26, on 08/22/2008, -7/+17Interesting stuff about the forms of water beyond liquid solid and gas.
- springboks, on 08/22/2008, -3/+12Dugg for mentioning the Tanzanian "Mpemba Effect". What a great story about a high school student teaching his teacher.
- Huangism, on 08/22/2008, -0/+9no your teacher is crazy I have boiled lot of water before and the warmer pots always boiled first
- Hello1024, on 08/22/2008, -2/+11Another wierd thing:
Water is slightly Diamagnetic.
see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamagnetism
(look at the frog picture - thats the magnetic field producing a force on the water molicules in the frogs body to make it levitate) - KesshoRyu, on 08/22/2008, -8/+16So your opinion is clearly the same as everyone else? I thought it was an interesting article and I hadn't noticed who the submitter was until I saw this comment.
- Croaton, on 08/22/2008, -1/+9Doesn't it turn into a Gremlin if it eats after midnight?
Water makes it pregnant... or what you want to call sprouting little furry balls from you back... - EvilJelloMan, on 08/22/2008, -3/+10Would have been better if it was a bel air.
- samoan27, on 08/22/2008, -0/+7They mention it at the end along with its extrodinary surface tension. Two more things they didn't mention that are certainly of note are it's the only substance that exists in all 3* phases of matter at livable temperatures and it has a tremendous heat capacity.
*Not counting the other 11 obscure phases - norman619, on 08/22/2008, -1/+8That's an insult to festering piles of ***** everywhere.
- MrTulip, on 08/22/2008, -0/+6yeah, have a look:
http://socialblade.com/digg/diggfpdata.php
the overwhelming majority of frontpage articles is submitted by people with a large circle of 'friends'. this story had 99 diggs when it hit fp and 66 of them where from the friend network. only a handful of this list hit frontpage without any friend support, one being xkcd^^ - Modiga, on 08/22/2008, -0/+6What's better is taking some water with one of those little critters on it (pond skaters for example) and pouring some washing up liquid into the water. The washing up liquid destroys the surface tension and the pond skater will sink. To them, that must be like the ground has just suddenly lost all form and you find yourself sinking into the ground.
- smurfsahoy, on 08/22/2008, -2/+8Incorrect. Those account for most of the effect, but controlled professional studies with precision labware and identically composed water, and every other proposed external explanation taken into account still DO show the effect (in a very restricted temperature range only). Aristotle and the student, etc. might not have actually observed anything weird, but since then, it has been confirmed carefully.
- rye419, on 08/22/2008, -1/+7That experiment has been reproduced several times debunking the original experiment.
- smurfsahoy, on 08/22/2008, -1/+6Yes it's only under specific circumstances, BUT hot water does freeze differently than cold in a situation like yours. It's generally slicker (due more to the fact that it melts things first a little bit, and thus settles in a different way, not so much the properties of water), which would be good for a slide. Think of a zamboni machine, for instance.
Though you would probably want to use very little of it on top of your existing ice. Like spraying down the slide with an atomizer bottle, for instance. - Archaic1, on 08/23/2008, -0/+5You didn't find this article even slightly interesting? I thought it was one of the best today.
- Zenham, on 08/22/2008, -0/+5...if you're living in the third world or in a house with 80 year old pipes, maybe....
- VivaNOLA, on 08/22/2008, -2/+7So I tried the "hot water freezes faster" experiment with my kids last night and it's *****. The cold water had about a centimeter of ice all around before the first crystal grew on the hot water.
- kingp, on 08/22/2008, -0/+5It also kills aliens.
- HxChris91, on 08/22/2008, -1/+6Jesus Christ was a little critter?
- jgtg32a, on 08/22/2008, -0/+5-37 damn I wanted to do that this winter
- wallish, on 08/22/2008, -0/+4There was an episode of the Adult Swim show Metalocalypse in which the band Deth Klok records their album using a water, the "ultimate analog source". The episode was called Dethvengeance.
- HxChris91, on 08/22/2008, -0/+4I'm guessing the 'potential weapons' list.
- scooterbaga, on 08/22/2008, -0/+4Another odd thing about water is that it expands when going from a liquid to a solid (frozen) state.
The majority of liquids condense. - Slackdragon, on 08/22/2008, -0/+4Dethklok had pioneered the technology of using water as a recording medium, of great material expense, of course.
http://www.adultswim.com/video/?episodeID=8a25c392 ... - inactive, on 08/22/2008, -1/+5What list?
- SasquatchBill, on 08/22/2008, -5/+8Yeah! That was one of my favorite facts that they didn't mention - Water is it's most dense at 39°. My understanding is that the Hydrogen molecules rearrange themselves into a less dense lattice (Is that the correct usage?) when they freeze.
- WestDC, on 08/22/2008, -4/+7Yeah, except that "What the Bleep Do We Know?" was a festering pile of *****.
- wastelander, on 08/22/2008, -0/+3They should mention more about the "glass phase" (vitrification) of water. Vitrification has great potential for cryopreservation since tissues frozen in this state are not damaged by ice crystals.
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