Every few days, I refill the drinking water bottle I keep in my office. It’s a clear plastic bottle - one of those 1.5-liter things that soda comes in. I refill it from the office water cooler. I grasp the bottle at an angle with my hand around a third of the way down from the top. The chilled water hits the inside of the bottle maybe an inch away from my fingers. For a brief instant, I detect heat coming from the spot where the water hit the plastic. The bottle has up to then been at room temperature.
I remember reading that if you have two adjacent pipes, one warm and one cold, and you grasp both in one hand, your brain will for some reason register it as hot. It was a book intended for elementary school students, so it didn’t really go into detail about what the cause is. Maybe this is a related phenomenon?
I think the explanation must be something about confusing the senses. I am pretty sure the bottle doesn’t get hot. I’m a physicist and have concentrated on heat transfer and temperature for the lst few years.
I’m not sure this is exactly appropriate as it deals more with cell damage, but I think the idea is the same.
IANA neurologist, but I think of it as being an immediate nervous response. The body assumes it might be dangerous until there’s more information. IOW, warm or cold might be the precursors to burning or freezing.
BTW, if you don’t want to visit the link above, you can’t miss this tidbit:
I remember being at one of the pavillions at Epcot Center where they had a similar experiment set up. You’d grasp 2 pipes, one cold and one at room temperature (I believe), and the room temp one felt hot…until you let go of the cold one. It has to do with the way your brain perceives temperature.
One other possibility; I’ve seen plenty of water coolers that will distribute hot as well as cold water. If someone was pouring hot before you filled your bottle, there might be a small volume of hot water in the pipe and that’s the first thing that you feel.
You are holding a plastic bottle, one that is light and room temperature, but will shortly be heavy and cold. Your grip tightens as you prepare for the weight of the water. Your hand heats up from the (OK this just sounds like a porn novel now, dammit) tightness of your grip against the insulating plastic. (Quickly the bottle fills. Quicker, quicker you cry.) Heat continues to build, but a moment later the cold water cools the plastic and dissipates the heat.
Anyway, that might be it. Grab the empty bottle tightly and see if it feels the same. Additional factors might be memory of the previous temperature coupled with the drop in temperature, or an expectation of cold that is delayed, in the same way you lean forward when you think a car you’re riding in is going to brake?
0.33(or .35), 0.5 and 1.5 liters is standard in Scandinavia and has been since the introduction of larger than 0.33 bottles. The OPs location is HK though, and I have no idea what sizes they have there.
I (probably mis)remember an experiment described in some children’s science book (possibly the Ladybird book of school experiments or some such) - “touch the back of the subject’s neck with a piece of dry ice and he will think you have burned him with a cigarette!”
I’m not sure what kind of school the writer went to, but they didn’t let us handle dry ice at the one I attended (they pretty much frowned on smoking in class too).
However, the principle is a fairly sound one; our sensory apparatus often cannot tell the difference between sudden cold and sudden heat.
All I can say is, I really want a copy of **Mangetout’/B]'s science book.
I’ll try Amazon under The Degenerate’s Big Book of Science Experiments or possibly Evel Kenivel teaches Science!
“OK kids, for this experiment, you’ll need a common extension cord, with the socket end cut off so the wires are exposed. And a working outlet, of course.”
“you’ll see it takes far less force to break the skin with one nail than with several…”
If you’re working at an office where others work (i.e. not at a home office) then you probably are feeling hot water. Ever been to a hotel and wondered why the water gets hot so quickly when there’s a short delay at home? Another person has used the hot water recently, so the water right behind the spout is already hot. It happen to normal faucets, too.
Maybe. Or maybe the hotel has a circulation pump to keep hot water available at the tap instantly. My house has that - even though my shower is at the other end of the house from my water heaters, the water is hot instantly because a circulation pump keeps it flowing.
Heh, I remember that too. I distinctly remember it just being a normal ice-cube (perhaps they said to dry it off so it wasn’t obviously wet) and that it works best in an atmosphere where people might expect to be burned with a cigarette. Hmm, giving that last bit it seems unlikely that this was a school thing.
I’ve always gone with the explanation that there is really no sense for feeling “hot” or “cold”.
What your senses are feeling is the sensation of ‘heat transfer’.
If you touch a cold surface you are actually feeling the sensation of heat leaving your body.
If you touch a hot surface you are feeling the sensation of heat entering your body.
Since heat always moves from hot to cold an item feeling hot or cold actually depends on your temperature vs. the item and the movement of the heat to/from your body.