Science guys

[zylander]

So I got into this stupid argument with a friend about what melts ice faster; hot or cold water. I explained that if you want to defrost something, the fastest way is to put it under cold running water but he doesnt believe me. I knwo the explaination has to do with thermodynamics and the way the temperature of the ice changes in relation to the temperature of the water, but I dont remember how to explain it. Can anyone help me out?

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: zylander
So I got into this stupid argument with a friend about what melts ice faster; hot or cold water. I explained that if you want to defrost something, the fastest way is to put it under cold running water but he doesnt believe me. I knwo the explaination has to do with thermodynamics and the way the temperature of the ice changes in relation to the temperature of the water, but I dont remember how to explain it. Can anyone help me out?

There is a highly technical forum area.

Anyway it is an effiency curve as you actually can excite the molecules too much with too much heat so optimum melt rate drops.

 

[edro]

Melting it with cold water is more efficient, but warm or hot water will do the job faster. You might want to share that side of your argument with him.

 

[woowoo]

I thought this would be a ....
How do I cool down hot beer fast
Thread

 

[xanis]

Originally posted by: woowoo
I thought this would be a ....
How do I cool down hot beer fast
Thread

done on mythbusters a little while ago, turns out the fastest way is in a cooler with a mixture of ice, water and salt.

 

[StevenYoo]

Originally posted by: Xanis

Originally posted by: woowoo
I thought this would be a ....
How do I cool down hot beer fast
Thread

done on mythbusters a little while ago, turns out the fastest way is in a cooler with a mixture of ice, water and salt.

or a fire extinguisher

 

[xanis]

Originally posted by: StevenYoo

Originally posted by: Xanis

Originally posted by: woowoo
I thought this would be a ....
How do I cool down hot beer fast
Thread

done on mythbusters a little while ago, turns out the fastest way is in a cooler with a mixture of ice, water and salt.

or a fire extinguisher

yes, or a fire extinguisher, i think that was the one that actually worked the best...

 

[FelixDeCat]

Originally posted by: Xanis

Originally posted by: StevenYoo

Originally posted by: Xanis

Originally posted by: woowoo
I thought this would be a ....
How do I cool down hot beer fast
Thread

done on mythbusters a little while ago, turns out the fastest way is in a cooler with a mixture of ice, water and salt.

or a fire extinguisher

yes, or a fire extinguisher, i think that was the one that actually worked the best...

"Here, have a cold beer covered in salt water & fire extinguisher chemicals."

 

[skimple]

Originally posted by: zylander

put it under cold running water

I think one of the advantages of using running cold water is that the temperature of the cold water remains constant, so you are applying a constant temperature to the frozen item.

If you simply sit the frozen item in hot water, the temperature difference between the two becomes smaller over time. Of course running hot water would provide the same constant temperature.

 

[DaShen]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: zylander
So I got into this stupid argument with a friend about what melts ice faster; hot or cold water. I explained that if you want to defrost something, the fastest way is to put it under cold running water but he doesnt believe me. I knwo the explaination has to do with thermodynamics and the way the temperature of the ice changes in relation to the temperature of the water, but I dont remember how to explain it. Can anyone help me out?

There is a highly technical forum area.

Anyway it is an effiency curve as you actually can excite the molecules too much with too much heat so optimum melt rate drops.

I didn't know that.

Good to know.

 

[RagingBITCH]

Wait so are we arguing what *melts* the ice with the best consistency, or which one completely melts the ice in the fastest amount of time?

 

[Fenixgoon]

Originally posted by: Xanis

Originally posted by: woowoo
I thought this would be a ....
How do I cool down hot beer fast
Thread

done on mythbusters a little while ago, turns out the fastest way is in a cooler with a mixture of ice, water and salt.

freezing point depression FTW?


i seriously would have thought hot water, simply because the rate of heat transfer (generally speaking) increases as the difference between temperatures increase (a la newton's law of cooling)

 

[SpecialEd]

If I put one ice cube in a pot boiling water and one ice cube in a pot of room temperature water. The ice cube will disappear in the boiling water first no question.

 

[loup garou]

I think a point that has to be made, outside of the scientific analysis, is that it's generally accepted that cold running water is best for DEFROSTING (not melting) things, meat especially. The main reasoning being that hot/warm water may cook the outside of the meat, leaving you with something slightly cooked on the outside and still frozen on the inside.

EDIT: I thought this was going to be another cooling beer thread too. Now that people have watched MythBusters, they accept the salt/ice/water method. There was a post here a couple years ago where lots of people didn't believe me that it cooled beer faster than plain ice. *shakes head*

 

[Evadman]

Are you the same Zylander from the GhostBears?

 

[zylander]

Originally posted by: Evadman
Are you the same Zylander from the GhostBears?

Yes I am, whats up BGA! How have you been? (yes I know who you are)



dmcowen674: sorry, I had assumed that the higly technical area was for computer tech.

ok, I used the wrong terms in my original post. What Im asking is; if I have a block of ice, what is the fastest way to melt it? It sounds like running water is the best way because the flowing water provides a consistant temperature.

 

[habib89]

the reason that you defrost something under cold running water is because the cold water is warmer than the frozen food (obviously) and when you run it, you keep replacing the water near the ice (colder than the water comming out of the tap) with cold tap water..

the reason you do not want to defrost anythign in warm water is because warm water harbors bacteria.. if you were to melt the same block of ice under runnign hot water or running cold water, the hot water would win

 

[Evadman]

Originally posted by: zylander

Originally posted by: Evadman
Are you the same Zylander from the GhostBears?

Yes I am, whats up BGA! How have you been? (yes I know who you are)

You need to turn on your private messages and send me one.

 

[sharkeeper]

The water is confused.

Cheers!

 

[iwantanewcomputer]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: zylander
So I got into this stupid argument with a friend about what melts ice faster; hot or cold water. I explained that if you want to defrost something, the fastest way is to put it under cold running water but he doesnt believe me. I knwo the explaination has to do with thermodynamics and the way the temperature of the ice changes in relation to the temperature of the water, but I dont remember how to explain it. Can anyone help me out?

There is a highly technical forum area.

Anyway it is an effiency curve as you actually can excite the molecules too much with too much heat so optimum melt rate drops.

yes, but you don't care about effiency, you just want max heat transfer, which is proportional to delta t

 

[iwantanewcomputer]

Originally posted by: zylander

Originally posted by: Evadman
Are you the same Zylander from the GhostBears?

Yes I am, whats up BGA! How have you been? (yes I know who you are)



dmcowen674: sorry, I had assumed that the higly technical area was for computer tech.

ok, I used the wrong terms in my original post. What Im asking is; if I have a block of ice, what is the fastest way to melt it? It sounds like running water is the best way because the flowing water provides a consistant temperature.

crush to small pices in hot fast flowing water