Instant freezing of boiling water at -23 degrees C

By: Alex Bowyer (blogging at http://alexbowyer.com and http://www.human20.com and on twitter as @alexbfree)

On a cold day in January 2011 in Montreal, I tried the experiment of throwing boiling water in the air. It does indeed crystallize instantly in the air (provided the water is boiling hot).

Apparently hot water is vibrating more, so separates more easily. This allows more cold to contact each water particle and they all freeze instantly.

UPDATE: MONTREAL GAZETTE COVERAGE
The Gazette featured a newly filmed video available at http://bit.ly/egfTpM
They also wrote a brief "story" and reposted this video at http://bit.ly/eZ3wfk
A photo was also featured on the front page of the Tues 24th Jan paper. Front page visible here: http://bit.ly/ijwYvU

This video was inspired by a suggestion from my friend Dean Upton and by watching this video: http://bit.ly/fuwo3o

Here's another couple of videos filmed in Montreal over the same cold spell:
http://bit.ly/f1BdZ8
http://bit.ly/igqsxC

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• freezing
• evaporation
• water
• cold
• ice
• fog
• canada
• montreal
• science
• tricks
• boiling
• cup
• Science
• Water
• Evaporation
• Ice
• Freezing
• Cold
• Canada
• winter
• snow

[DubMartin8]

Youre a wizard harry!

[xmatt96x]

At first I thought that he just put some

snow in a cup an threw it over his patio...

[ErmeeBlackOps]

You sir made my day

[martynhingley]

I'm a chemist and never knew of this phenomenon. Very educational :-)

[zonqd]

Heh, that's pretty cool... really :)

[MrPhilippeLeb]

I did it in my video, but someone said it's freezing not evaporationg as I thought. So it looks like it's evaporating in some part of it.

[sherinakins]

I think a lot of us in Montreal were doing the same thing over the past day or so! It was so cold we had to do something fun, right? I put my video up as well. :)

[TheK33J]

lmao