Everyday Exceptional Physics

I found this story about the Mpemba effect to be very interesting. From the Skulls in the Stars blog I've excerpted some interesting bits:

Mpemba made his accidental discovery in Tanzania in 1963, when he was only 13 years old and in secondary school. In spite of widespread disdain from his classmates, he surreptitiously continued experiments on the phenomenon until he had the good fortune in high school to interact with Professor Denis Osborne of the University College Dar es Salaam. Osborne was intrigued, carried out his own experiments, and in 1969 the two published a paper in the journal Physics Education.

This article is, in my opinion, one of the most remarkable in all of the history of physics. Aside from its title, “Cool?”, it is also unusual in being presented in two parts: Mpemba gives a first person account in his own words of his discovery in the first half, and Osborne picks up the story and describes the follow-up experiments in the second half. Mpemba’s own account is so charming and fascinating that it is worth quoting from liberally:

My name is Erasto B Mpemba, and I am going to tell you about my discovery, which was due to misusing a refrigerator. All of you know that it is advisable not to put hot things in a refrigerator, for you somehow shock it; and it will not last long.

In 1963, when I was in form 3 in Magamba Secondary School, Tanzania, I used to make ice-cream. The boys at the school do this by boiling milk, mixing it with sugar and putting it into the freezing chamber in the refrigerator, after it has first cooled nearly to room temperature. A lot of boys make it and there is a rush to get space in the refrigerator.

One day after buying milk from the local women, I started boiling it. Another boy, who had bought some milk for making ice-cream, ran to the refrigerator when he saw me boiling up milk and quickly mixed his milk with sugar and poured it into the icetray without boiling it; so that he may not miss his chance. Knowing that if I waited for the boiled milk to cool before placing it in the refrigerator I would lose the last available ice-tray, I decided to risk ruin to the refrigerator on that day by putting hot milk into it. The other boy and I went back an hour and a half later and found that my tray of milk had frozen into ice-cream while his was still only a thick liquid, not yet frozen.

I asked my physics teacher why it happened like that, with the milk that was hot freezing first, and the answer he gave me was that “You were confused, that cannot happen”. Then I believed his answer.

Here we have the beginnings of a classic story of science — an accidental discovery, scoffed at by the “establishment scientists”.

... Professor Osborne came to lecture on physics, giving Mpemba a valuable opportunity:

When Dr Osborne visited our school we were allowed to ask him some questions, mainly in physics. I asked: “If you take two similar containers with equal volumes Of water, one at 35 °C and the other at 100 °C, and put them into a refrigerator, the one that started at 100 °C freezes first. Why?” He first smiled and asked me to repeat the question. After I repeated it he said: “Is it true, have you done it?” I said: “Yes.” Then he said: “I do not know, but I promise to try this experiment when I am back in Dar es Salaam.” Next day my classmates in form six were saying to me that I had shamed them by asking that question and that my aim was to ask a question which Dr Osborne would not be able to answer. Some said to me: “But Mpemba did you understand your chapter on Newton’s law of cooling?” I told them: “Theory differs from practical.” Some said : “We do not wonder, for that was Mpemba’s physics.”

There are many remarkable points in this short passage. First of all, we see an admirable open-mindedness of Professor Osborne in his dealings with Mpemba, and that open-mindedness would quickly benefit them both. Conversely, we see a dangerous “groupthink” amongst Mpemba’s classmates regarding science, in which they are genuinely offended by Mpemba questioning the status quo. Mpemba shows great wisdom in his answer: “Theory differs from practical”. This is an important point for anyone studying physics: we like to create simplified models to explain nature, but those models often lose real-world aspects in the process of stripping them down.

Mpemba actually continued his experiments in a kitchen refrigerator, with the permission of kitchen staff, and convinced his classmates and the headmaster of his school of the accuracy of his findings.

At Dar es Salaam, Osborne was true to his word and looked into the phenomenon himself. As he notes in the continuation of the paper,

It seemed an unlikely happening, but the student insisted that he was sure of the facts. I confess that I thought he was mistaken but fortunately remembered the need to encourage students to develop questioning and critical attitudes. No question should be ridiculed. In this case there was an added reason for caution, for everyday events are seldom as simple as they seem and it is dangerous to pass a superficial judgment on what can and cannot be. I said that the facts as they were given surprised me because they appeared to contradict the physics I know. But I added that it was possible that the rate of cooling might be affected by some factor I had not considered.

Osborne sets a great example for all physics educators! It can be difficult at times, but “No question should be ridiculed” would be a great part of a “Hippocratic oath” for teachers.

One other anecdote from Osborne’s account is worth quotation:

At the University College in Dar es Salaam I asked a young technician to test the facts. The technician reported that the water that started hot did indeed freeze first and added in a moment of unscientific enthusiasm: “But we’ll keep on repeating the experiment until we get the right result.”

I leave it as an exercise to the reader to explain what is scientifically wrong with the technician’s attitude!

I like the story for many reasons. First, it is a mystery. It sounds wrong, but experiments actually produce the effect, so there must be a cause. Second, I like the "underdog" aspect of it. A student is maligned for reporting a result and struggles against social opprobrium and finally gets his experiments validated. Third, the write-up is very good with the author making points about the science, the practice of science, and the practice of teaching. Valuable stuff.

Now for something completely different... the professor of optics who runs the Skulls in the Stars blog has this post which I find amusing. Be sure to watch the video of David Brooks watching the elaboration of the David Brooks meme!