On Jun 24, 9:32*am, Cindy Hamilton >
wrote:
> On Jun 23, 7:14*pm, Kalmia > wrote:
>
> > I have heard that cold water will come to a boil quicker than warm
> > water. *Not having identical pots and burners, I am at a lost to test
> > this. * Any truth to this, and if so, why?
>
> Try out this thought experiment:
>
> You have two identical pots, two identical burners, and two
> identical quantities of water.
>
> One of the pots of water is at 40 F, pretty far from boiling.
> The other pot is at 210 F, almost ready to boil.
>
> Apply heat from your two identical burners. *Which
> pot do you think will boil first?
>
> If the two pots of water are at 70 and 120 F, the
> difference in boiling times will be smaller, but
> I'd still expect the one starting at 120 F to boil
> first.
>
> As to the "does a covered pot boil quicker", that is
> an experiment you can readily conduct at home
> with one pot and one burner. *You'll have to make
> sure the initial conditions are the same for each
> run, but with a little patience that's feasible.
>
> Cindy Hamilton

I guess with a stopwatch, I could run a very weak experiment. Hey -
I heard this from a guy half in the bag at a bar - so I had my
doubts. He sure didn't look like the scientific type.