it's fun to think about this in the context of science and the experimental method.
this of experiment is what we're taught in grade school is science. there are a limited number of variables and you manipulate them in a controlled setting to figure out cause and effect.
this works reasonably well in the physical sciences, sometimes in the biological sciences, and almost never in the social sciences (to the dismay of economists and other social scientists).
the number of omitted variables and heterogeneity in outcomes explodes as you move from the physical sciences to the social ones so you need a different toolkit to handle them (RCTs!).
economics and other social sciences still want to get at explainable mechanisms like you would get in physics but it's just not that simple and generalizable. it reminds me of trying to get to ai explainability, it's really hard because you're trying to project a high-dimensional space into a lower one that never fully explains the higher one. capeesh?
Your experiment reminds me of the Mpemba effect, which is "...the name given to the observation that a liquid (typically water) which is initially hot can freeze faster than the same liquid which begins cold, under otherwise similar conditions. There is disagreement about its theoretical basis and the parameters required to produce the effect." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mpemba_effect
Based on wild extrapolation, this means pouring a cup of boiling water from 5 meters above ground would cool it so much it turns into snow (regardless of time spent pouring).
I found a video online of a guy tossing a pot of boiling water into -29°C air, and it's not too far off!
In India in the 1940s and 1950s (and for all I know possibly still today..) one used to be able to buy a cup of tea on railway platforms, whilst the train was stopped at the station. Because the water came out of the tea urn boiling hot and you were going to drink it from a heat-conducting tin mug (and only had a few minutes whilst the train was stopped) the tea urn man would cool the tea for you by pouring it between two receptacles before pouring it into your tin mug.
Rather than pouring from an extreme height he would pour it several times back-and-forth, and rather than trying to "aim" the pour he would begin the pour with the two receptacles held close together, one in each hand, then (with practiced swiftness) raise one up whilst keeping his eyes on the lower one to keep the stream roughly in the centre of its opening. Then he'd bring the two receptacles back together, all the while "connected" by this stream of tea, and pour back to the first one. The whole process looked a bit like somebody stretching out some ductile, toffee-like substance between their hands.
[Also: to know how significant your results are, I'd love to know what temperature the water started off at? (ie. what was the ambient pressure in the room it was boiled in, and was boiling-point measured visually, by thermometer, or by a steam-pressure-switch like you'd find in a kettle..?)]
The "insect-bitten tea" link doesn't work for me.
it's fun to think about this in the context of science and the experimental method.
this of experiment is what we're taught in grade school is science. there are a limited number of variables and you manipulate them in a controlled setting to figure out cause and effect.
this works reasonably well in the physical sciences, sometimes in the biological sciences, and almost never in the social sciences (to the dismay of economists and other social scientists).
the number of omitted variables and heterogeneity in outcomes explodes as you move from the physical sciences to the social ones so you need a different toolkit to handle them (RCTs!).
economics and other social sciences still want to get at explainable mechanisms like you would get in physics but it's just not that simple and generalizable. it reminds me of trying to get to ai explainability, it's really hard because you're trying to project a high-dimensional space into a lower one that never fully explains the higher one. capeesh?
Science!!
I don't know who you are but you are very funny
Your experiment reminds me of the Mpemba effect, which is "...the name given to the observation that a liquid (typically water) which is initially hot can freeze faster than the same liquid which begins cold, under otherwise similar conditions. There is disagreement about its theoretical basis and the parameters required to produce the effect." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mpemba_effect
Now that is an A+ awesome experiment. Well-designed, well-executed, and well-analyzed. A fun read.
Based on wild extrapolation, this means pouring a cup of boiling water from 5 meters above ground would cool it so much it turns into snow (regardless of time spent pouring).
I found a video online of a guy tossing a pot of boiling water into -29°C air, and it's not too far off!
Did you control for air temperature and relative humidity?
How much of the temperature drop from a 30 second pour would also occur if it was sitting in the cup for those 30 seconds?
Fast becoming one of my favourite substacks
In India in the 1940s and 1950s (and for all I know possibly still today..) one used to be able to buy a cup of tea on railway platforms, whilst the train was stopped at the station. Because the water came out of the tea urn boiling hot and you were going to drink it from a heat-conducting tin mug (and only had a few minutes whilst the train was stopped) the tea urn man would cool the tea for you by pouring it between two receptacles before pouring it into your tin mug.
Rather than pouring from an extreme height he would pour it several times back-and-forth, and rather than trying to "aim" the pour he would begin the pour with the two receptacles held close together, one in each hand, then (with practiced swiftness) raise one up whilst keeping his eyes on the lower one to keep the stream roughly in the centre of its opening. Then he'd bring the two receptacles back together, all the while "connected" by this stream of tea, and pour back to the first one. The whole process looked a bit like somebody stretching out some ductile, toffee-like substance between their hands.
[Also: to know how significant your results are, I'd love to know what temperature the water started off at? (ie. what was the ambient pressure in the room it was boiled in, and was boiling-point measured visually, by thermometer, or by a steam-pressure-switch like you'd find in a kettle..?)]
Incropera and DeWitt’s Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer almost definitely has the solution to this.
Falling water droplets are covered in chapter 7, and I’m sure something in there would allow you to derive the equation for a continuous laminar flow.