Hope everyone got in good shape this past week chopping ice off everything in sight. My grandson and I were discussing the Mpemba effect that states that hot water can freeze faster than cold water. We wondered if that implied you should not try to melt ice off the front porch with hot water because it would just freeze another layer on top of what is there.
The Mpemba effect is a scientific curiosity that influences the cooling process of liquids and especially the phenomenon that hot water can freeze faster than cold water. In 1963, while making ice cream, Erasto Mpemba from Tanzania, observed that hot mixtures froze faster than cooler ones. He investigated and developed the Mpemba effect.
The conclusion for porches is that using hot water to melt ice off your porch is not the best solution because the hot water will melt ice temporarily, then freeze again and create a more slippery mess than you had. The real solution is to mix hot water with dish soap to reduce the surface tension of the water and alcohol to lower the freezing point.
