# How is this possible?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-this-possible/334827>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 9, 2005, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-this-possible/334827 "2005-12-09T04:18:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![howisi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/48db29/32.png) [@howisi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/howisi)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2005, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-this-possible/334827/1 "2005-12-09T04:18:44Z")

</div>

Look at this. Supercooled water. How can it not freeze when it sits there?

[http://f0rked.com/articles/supercooling](http://f0rked.com/articles/supercooling)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Strinka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/strinka/32/512_2.png) [@Strinka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strinka)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2005, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-this-possible/334827/2 "2005-12-09T04:48:26Z")

</div>

I can’t see those videos. Is there some version of Quicktime I have to download or something?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Valgard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/7feea3/32.png) [@Valgard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valgard)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2005, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-this-possible/334827/3 "2005-12-09T04:50:44Z")

</div>

Read the conclusion at the end of that article, it explains it pretty simply. Quite cool.

Pun intended 🙂

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2005, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-this-possible/334827/4 "2005-12-09T04:53:39Z")

</div>

In order for water molecules to crystalize, there need to be some impurities in the water for a crystal to form around. Since bottled water is usually filtered, it has relatively small amounts of impurities. The water can be supercooled well below 0C without crystalizing. Movving or stirring the water is usually enough to move some small impurity around and get the crystal to form. Crystalization is a chain reaction – once you’ve got a small crystal, other ones start forming around it.

A related phenomenon is super-heating, in which water is heated to above 100C without evaporating. This has been known to cause injuries when people remove super-heated water from the microwave, causing it to all boil at once and splash all over.

See also: [Supercooling](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercooling) and [Superheating](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superheating).

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2005, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-this-possible/334827/5 "2005-12-09T04:59:03Z")

</div>

Supercooled water [Googled from various university web sites](http://www.google.com/search?q=supercooled+water&sourceid=mozilla&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8).

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Viscera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/258eb7/32.png) [@Viscera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Viscera)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2005, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-this-possible/334827/6 "2005-12-09T05:22:24Z")

</div>

This happens fairly often to me when I put Gatorade bottles in the freezer (maybe 50% of the time). If I leave them in there for a few hours (they will freeze if I leave them there long enough), they are liquid, but a minor shake will cause them to freeze instantly. I agree, very cool to look at.