Up Next
Back to Show
It's Okay to Be Smart
The Very Weird Reason Hot Water Freezes Faster
Season 14
Episode 9
Why can hot water sometimes freeze faster than cold water? In 1963, Erasto Mpemba noticed this while making ice cream, sparking a scientific mystery that still puzzles physicists. The Mpemba effect now appears in materials, magnets and quantum systems, revealing surprising connections between energy, equilibrium and the strange ways nature finds shortcuts.
Support Provided By
27:32
How science unraveled one of the biggest myths in modern medicine...HIV's true origins.
21:23
I pushed my body in a climate & sports research lab to discover what extreme heat really does to us.
16:47
If everything around us is made of atoms, why can’t we actually see them?
10:51
This video explores the bizarre mathematics that show how infinity is far stranger than a number.
24:25
How Gerardus Mercator later created a map that transformed navigation forever.
22:37
DNA solves crimes, but what happens when it sends innocent people to prison?
14:52
How thousands of tiny brains, obeying simple rules, solve problems no individual can understand.
19:50
Joe visits a flavor lab to uncover how our senses shape our taste.
22:36
How did the mass extinction of the dinosaurs play out, moment by moment?
12:37
Think traits like eye color or tongue-rolling are simple genetics? Think again.