Can you answer this scientific question?

[RifleBowPistol]

Got a question that has baffled me and my wife for years. I say me and then my wife, because it baffled me for a while, then finally my wife took notice of the situation after a couple of years.

We can put bottle water bottles in the fridge, leave them there for most of a day, few days or a few weeks. They will all be lined up on the bottom shelf. Some of them will freeze, others won't. There does not seem to be any rhyme or reason some do, some don't. It's not always the ones in the same spot. Not always the same number of bottles that freeze. Sometimes we might have three that freeze, other times, there might be five that are frozen.

After about two days, which ever ones are frozen, only those will be frozen days later. I keep wanting to mark the frozen bottles, to keep track, if the same bottles freeze repeatedly, but never took the time. At times, when I find there are multiple frozen bottles, in the fridge, and I want a bottle of water, I will take the frozen ones out, put them on the counter to thaw. Then at some point after they thaw, my wife will put them back in the fridge. I need to mark them before they go back in the fridge, to see if they freeze again. I think they do, but not sure. It seems like we will have the same number of frozen bottles the next day.

There have been water bottles that have stayed in the fridge for over a month and did not freeze, but others have frozen within a day of being put in the fridge.

So why is this?

[txpitdog]

Some bottles are in front of the cold air circulation vent are are in the direct path of sub freezing air. They get lowered below the freezing point through direct contact with the air when the compressor runs, while other bottle further away only get down to the ambient inside temperature of the fridge. A refrigerator that runs the compressor often is likely to have dirty coils, making the cycle less efficient and causing the compressor to work more often. This sub freezing air is blowing more frequently across the bottles and has a better chance of freezing them.

Another critical consideration to this is that I completely made this up, have no actual idea what I’m talking about, but thanks to an engineering degree can bullshxt my through it enough for you to have nodded your head in agreement since the second sentence.


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[Pstraw]

And I thought that watching grass grow was intriguing.


I have no clue. Are the bottles touching?

[MadHatter]

https://www.quora.com/Why-did-one-bottle-of-a-12-pack-of-water-freeze-in-my-garage-refrigerator-while-the-others-remained-completely-liquid

[meltingfeather]

Thermodynamics

[BayouCat]

Nucleation.

Always fun to take a bottle of water out of the freezer that is still liquid, open it, and watch it turn to ice as soon as you twist the cap off.

[dhall1414]

this is a neat one. assuming all the bottles are the same shape, volume, material, and wall thickness, that only leaves a few other considerations. you said it's not related to position in the fridge so that rules out environmental factors and that given a long time some still won't freeze. this really only leaves what's inside the bottles to explain different behavior.

Do you fill the bottles to the same level every time? variations in the water level combined with the temperature of the water when you fill it can change the internal pressure as temperature drops and the bottle is sealed (ideal gas law). This would be particularly pronounced in bottles that are stiff enough to resist deformation due to a pressure gradient across the wall thickness.

additionally you very likely don't have pure water and will have a solution of whatever was in the ground water plus what gets left over when it's treated and even the pipe itself, as well as any residual chemicals from washing the bottle (if that's something you do regularly). if you have particularly hard or soft water this could also be the cause. by having a water solution rather than pure water you get some variance in the actual freezing point, and if your fridge is tuned to be near freezing you would get some weird behavior like this.

[Johnny44]

This is great !

[OldRiverRat]

Nucleation.

Always fun to take a bottle of water out of the freezer that is still liquid, open it, and watch it turn to ice as soon as you twist the cap off.

That happened to me this wknd
Kinda threw me, put two one gallon bottles of drinking water jn the freezer Friday night so we would have cold water while we were working Saturday
When I got them out of the freezer the next morning they were both still fluid which seemed weird, I put them in the ice chest as we headed out to cut some wood, opened the chest and grabbed a bottle and it was mostly frozen. Thought I was
Losing my mind!


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[RifleBowPistol]

Some bottles are in front of the cold air circulation vent are are in the direct path of sub freezing air. They get lowered below the freezing point through direct contact with the air when the compressor runs, while other bottle further away only get down to the ambient inside temperature of the fridge. A refrigerator that runs the compressor often is likely to have dirty coils, making the cycle less efficient and causing the compressor to work more often. This sub freezing air is blowing more frequently across the bottles and has a better chance of freezing them.

Another critical consideration to this is that I completely made this up, have no actual idea what I’m talking about, but thanks to an engineering degree can bullshxt my through it enough for you to have nodded your head in agreement since the second sentence.


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I left out info, the bottom shelf is not tall enough for the bottles to stand up, so they are all laying horizontally, usually with the bottoms of the bottles facing towards the door. When we load a bunch of bottles in there out of a package. We will stack them two high. But it's random bottles that freeze, not necessarily bottles laying side by side. If they are stacked, there can be frozen bottles in the bottom row and the top row, again randomly. But at times, there will be a couple frozen side by side.

[RifleBowPistol]

And I thought that watching grass grow was intriguing.


I have no clue. Are the bottles touching?

If there are a bunch of them yes. Most likely when they freeze, they are touching each other. So there are frozen bottles in contact with bottles that are not even close to frozen, no ice chunks, nothing in some bottles.

[RifleBowPistol]

Nucleation.

Always fun to take a bottle of water out of the freezer that is still liquid, open it, and watch it turn to ice as soon as you twist the cap off.

I don't remember this ever happening, but not going to say it has not.

Usually, I look in the fridge, and look for the darker looking bottles, if they have only been in the fridge for four hours or less. Seems the ones that have a darker look to them are the colder ones. The ones that are lighter or more clear colored, typically look lighter, brighter or clearer. If they have only been in the fridge for half a day or less, I usually can see a difference in how the bottles look. Once they have been in the fridge for a day or more, I feel to see which ones can be squeezed and which ones are hard as a rock. If I want a drink right now I grab a soft bottle. If I am going to be working out in the heat for a good while, I may grad a soft bottle for now and frozen bottle for later. Basically take the frozen one outside and let it thaw out.

Now on how the bottles look when they have only been in the fridge for a few hours, my theory on the darker bottles are colder, is usually correct, but now 100% of the time that is the case. Once they are frozen solid you can look at them and tell they are frozen, or if there is a lot of stuff on the second from the bottom shelf and it's hard to see the water bottles, like I said, I just reach in and feel for a soft bottle. As the number off bottles gets low, that's when I finally take the frozen ones out, set them on the counter to thaw out. We do at times get partially frozen bottles, where there is ice up at the top, in the neck or the top half or so, is frozen from in the center of the bottle, not all the way to the sides of the bottle. So when grabbing them, it's hard to tell they are frozen, until you get them out and take the lid off. I am pretty sure we only get the partially frozen bottles, after they have been in the fridge for at least three days, but possibly less. I want to say we get the partially frozen bottles, is after they have been in the fridge for close to a week.

[Draco]

The ones that don't freeze are the ones that sweat from the bottler dripped into while being bottled.

[scotth89]

I’ve got one for y’all.

If you put 25 pounds of fish in your live well in the boat, does your boat weight 25 pounds more? Live well is full of water of course.

[PlanoDano]

Thermodynamics

this explains why jelly toast always lands jelly side down