An On-the-Spot Experiment! Hot Water Froze First! Unbelievable! The Entire Audience Was Stunned! The Mpemba Effect!

The question Li Qiwei raised stunned everyone.

Not because it was too difficult, but because it was too simple.

So simple that even the middle school students present knew the answer.

A few middle school boys chattered away, delighted.

"This is the change of states of matter our physics teacher talked about in class."

"For a liquid to change from a liquid state into a solid state, it has to cool down gradually."

"Hot water starts at a higher temperature than cold water, so naturally it takes longer to cool down enough to freeze."

"So cold water must freeze first."

All the little companions agreed wholeheartedly.

"Xuesen, you're amazing!"

Xuesen said to the friend beside him:

"Zhuxi is better than I am."

When Zhou Peiyuan, Wang Dezhao, and the others heard the little brats' discussion, their expressions turned strange.

That had been their initial thought as well.

But now, they simply could not bring themselves to say it aloud.

What a joke. They were mature university students and graduate students—how could they possibly share the same opinion as middle schoolers?

"There's definitely something fishy about this question!"

"It's not as simple as it looks on the surface!"

Zhou Peiyuan and Wang Dezhao exchanged a glance.

As veterans who had participated in the Physics Olympiad, they knew all too well what tricks lay hidden within.

The fewer words a question had, the simpler it seemed—the harder it often was.

Take that absolutely smooth rigid little ball from the first Olympiad, for instance.

In physics, many phenomena people took for granted actually contained profound principles.

Wang Dezhao asked:

"Brother Zhou, what do you think the answer is?"

Zhou Peiyuan frowned slightly and said:

"Thinking in reverse, hot water must freeze first."

"But I can't figure out why."

"That doesn't seem possible!"

Wang