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Does hot water freeze faster than cold water?

A bucket of hot water will not freeze faster than a bucket of cold water. However, a bucket of water that has been heated or boiled, then allowed to cool to the same temperature as the bucket of cold water, may freeze faster. Heating or boiling drives out some of the air bubbles in water; since air bubbles cut down thermal conductivity (the flow of heat), they tend to increase the amount of time it takes for water to freeze. For the same reason, previously heated water forms denser ice than unheated water. This is why hot-water pipes generally burst before cold-water pipes in freezing weather.

Source: Burnam, Tom. The Dictionary of Misinformation, p. 112.

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