Why does hot water freeze faster than cold water? It seems a simple enough question - yet it has baffled the best brains for at least 2,300 years. Aristotle agonized over it fruitlessly in the fourth century BCRoger Bacon in the 13th century used it to advocate the scientific method in his book Opus Majus Another Bacon, Francis, wrote in his 1620 Novum Organum, that "slightly tepid water freezes more easily than that which is utterly cold" but could not explain whyDescartes was defeated by it in the 18th century ADEven perplexed 20th and 21st century scientists and intellectuals have swarmed over...