26 June 2012
Why does hot water freeze faster than cold water?
It seems a simple enough question - yet it has baffled the best brains for at least 2,300 years.
- Aristotle agonized over it fruitlessly in the fourth century BC
- Roger Bacon in the 13th century used it to advocate the scientific method in his book Opus Majus
- Another Bacon, Francis, wrote in his 1620 Novum Organum, that "slightly tepid water freezes more easily than that which is utterly cold" but could not explain why
- Descartes was defeated by it in the 18th century AD
- Even perplexed 20th and 21st century scientists and intellectuals have swarmed over it without result
Now the Royal Society of Chemistry is offering £1000 to the person or team producing the best and most creative explanation of the phenomenon, known today as The Mpemba Effect.
Competition judges will be looking for an outside-the-box, inventive submission. In addition, the format of the submission should be creative and eye-catching.
Any medium or technology can be employed to make the case, including articles, illustrations or even film.
Submissions can be based on, and reference, existing research. The winning submission will be scientifically sound, and arresting in presentation and delivery.
The public has four weeks to crack the case before a group of the world's brightest young science brains take on the challenge in London as one aspect of a special science communications meeting entitled Hermes 2012.
Fittingly, that group's bid for glory will be made in the first week of the Olympics. The sharpest international postgraduate science students will travel to England from around the globe to participate in the Hermes 2012 event.
The Royal Society of Chemistry is sponsoring this visit to the UK of the hand-picked young scientists, who will gather at Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park.
The organisers of Hermes 2012, based at Imperial College, chose the opening weekend of the Olympic Games for the academic event to underline the global nature of the meeting, with its temporary, multi-national community of high-achievers.
A highlight of the Windsor event will be a team attempt to produce videos to explain various scientific phenomena, which will include The Mpemba Effect.
