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Why you can hear the temperature of water
- moi2388 2y agoThe article doesn’t even give the reason lmfao journalism is so dead
- michaelcampbell 2y agoI always thought I could do this but hadn't admitted it to anyone because of its preposterousness. Huh.
- PaulHoule 2y agoArchived: https://archive.ph/ITRzw https://archive.ph/ITRzw
- jerbear4328 2y agoAnd the audio clip (which doesn't work on the archive): https://static.nytimes.com/podcasts/2024/05/09/science/09tb-hot-water-clip/hot-and-cold.mp3 https://static.nytimes.com/podcasts/2024/05/09/science/09tb-...
- GistNoesis 2y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri_4dDvcZeM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri_4dDvcZeM
- mikewarot 2y agoI noticed the sound when making hot chocolate for my child. I figured there are a number of things at play... the leidenfrost effect when the water hits the much hotter edge above the waterline in a kettle(not in this video), the air over the hot water being more humid (and thus lighter), the much higher vapor pressure, the difference in surface tension, the dissolving of the hot chocolate powder, etc. Viscosity isn't something I considered... but it makes sense.
- kinow 2y agoI thought I wouldn't be able to tell the difference, but when he told me to pause the video to try to guess, I listened to the audio of pouring water again, and thought about "which one sounds like when I pour tea", and that way I could identify the warm/cold water. Interesting!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jaredhallen 2y agoI can definitely hear when the shower gets hot. Cool to have some explanation behind it.
- KineticLensman 2y agoLikewise. My shower takes quite a long time to run hot, and I can usually hear when it has reached the point where it is no longer too uncomfortable to get in.
- philipswood 2y agoYeah, my shower takes a a while to run hot, so I also listen for when the water is ready.
- Tanoc 2y agoThis is something I noticed as a kid. We had a creek in our backyard, which,depending on the temperature the water would be louder or quieter. This annoyed our dog, which after a number of times caused me to notice. Running water is louder and much more sharp when it's cold out, and quieter and muffled when it's hot out. In the same way sounds are louder in a colder environment because there's already a low level of ambient energy contained in the air and so the energy disperses much more readily but dissipates much more quickly. Essentially a difference between a quick "crack" and a lingering "whump" in terms of auditory impact. This effect also propagates to solid materials, as cold metals and ceramics transmit sound better than warm ceramics or metals. A church bell quite literally is louder on a cold winter's day.
- golergka 2y agoI wonder how well it maps to notions of a “cold reverb” or “warm synth” in music production.
- axxl 2y agoMy thought on the general "loudness" of cold months was due to reduced noise blocking or absorbing greenery like tree leaves, grass, etc. Which is then altered by a significant snowfall leading to sounds being softened again.
- ffsm8 2y agoShouldn't that be an inverse relationship though? Without leaves on the trees you should get less reflection, consequently more of the noise should radiate upwards. Unless you're standing at the other side of a bush/greenery. In that case it definitely absorbs a lot
- CrazyStat 2y agoLots of small unaligned surfaces, like leaves, scatter the sound and make it interfere with itself. Reflection only makes the sound louder if you have large smooth flatish surfaces.
- animal531 2y agoAs the article mentions, most people know how to tell the difference by sound but if you were to ask them they would say no, it's impossible. That just makes me wonder how many other things there are that people subconsciously learns, without it ever becoming obviously noticeable for them?
- abyssin 2y agoI’d say lots of behavioural cues, for instance related to dominance. Many people feel like they’re behaving freely because they’ve completely internalized the constraints their social position imposes upon them.
- mbo 2y agoI _think_ I can tell whether a car is an ICE / hybrid / electric just by the way their weight shifts around corners. My friends maintain they cannot, but under test conditions, I'm sure they'd be fine.
- YurgenJurgensen 2y agoAre you sure it's weight distribution and not conducted engine vibration and gear shift patterns? Seems like it'd be difficult to control for (assuming we're already controlling for engine noise).
- mbo 2y agoI'm pretty sure it's weight distribution. Like I can tell the difference between a hybrid Camry and a pure ICE Camry based on how it bobs over speed bumps, not just in cornering / acceleration.
- xnx 2y agoMany people can perceive polarized light.
- DoctorOetker 2y agoThere are many examples of humans being able to observe a difference, yet deny their capability to discern on the basis of abstract rational knowledge. Another example is frame rates: while its well known that the bandwidth of light sensitive cones on the retina is around 30Hz cycle frequency (and thus ~60Hz framerate), many gamers felt the difference of higher framerates, even though many of the same gamers denied observability of this difference on the basis of knowledge of this basic biological fact. The biological fact is not wrong: if screen pixel projects are at rest on the retina. But when the eye is rotating to follow a depicted object on the screen, then speeds higher than ~60 pixels per second result in motion blur that would be absent when observing a real life object moving at the same angular speeds. The biological fact is still true, but simply not naively applicable in the context of motion blur due to eyeballs rotating while observing a display.
- inglor_cz 2y agoAbsolutely, yes. Pouring hot water into a cup sounds very different from pouring cold water into a cup. Even the flow looks visibly different, hot water is a lot more "lively". Noticed this as a kid, never made a mistake.
- is_true 2y agoalso the sound the cup makes when you hit it with a spoon while stirring
- eimrine 2y agoDo you know how to download sound from nytimes.com? I can show the article on the website (not on archive one) and I would like to analyze the sound in audio software.
- perilunar 2y agoIf you wade through the (incredibly verbose) HTML you can eventually find a script with the source for the audio file, which is: https://static.nytimes.com/podcasts/2024/05/09/science/09tb-hot-water-clip/hot-and-cold.mp3 https://static.nytimes.com/podcasts/2024/05/09/science/09tb-...
- kosolam 2y agoLet us know the results please
- eimrine 2y agoSecond sample has significant hi-hat style sustain, since I know it is hot water it should be a steam. First sample has really little amount of this sound which might be produced from bubbles. First sample is really interesting because it has 2 bass lines: first starts at 900Hz and rising to 100Hz, second starts at 600Hz and quickly dropping to 400Hz and keep lowering slowly to 300Hz. Definitely not harmonicas, it is something like 2 independent resonating frequencies for something inside of glass-and-water sound source. Bassline of second sound is singular fat line; firstly it starts at 700Hz and slowly grows upto 1kHz. Probably the 2 basslines from the first samples (cold) was something that bothered the dog, maybe the thing is in rich sound such as chord vs single note. I don't care about bubbles but when I will have an access to a nice microphone I will try to record more samples of this. The hard part is how to remove water from the glass between 2 or more experiments because it is important to have really similar setups without moving the glass even slightly.
- extragood 2y agoIt's easy enough to reproduce - may as well run a quick experiment and record that.
- ynniv 2y agoHuh, I guess this is why movies never have convincingly cold water. Everyone is shivering, but it never sounds cold.
- erehweb 2y agoGoogling, it sounds like cold showers are fairly common in movies https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dg52a5/eli5_in_shower_scenes_in_films_how_do_they_stop/ https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dg52a5/e...
- YurgenJurgensen 2y agoThat kind of sound effect is usually added in post anyway.
- ynniv 2y agoRight, my point is that everything about a scene should sound cold. Foley work can get you some of the way, but the ambient temperature is probably less like a prop and more like white balance. Since no one is approaching it that way, it never sounds right. If you didn't grow up in the cold you probably never noticed, but few movies ever properly convey it.
- novaRom 2y agoAlso hard vs soft water may sound different, not just carbonated water. Soft water feels smoother and silkier on the skin because it contains less minerals.
- anfractuosity 2y agoSomeone appears to have made an android app to attempt to distinguish temperature from sound of pour - https://petter.saterskog.com/ai-thermometer/index.htm https://petter.saterskog.com/ai-thermometer/index.htm I thought I'd heard the 'stickiness' of the water affects how it sounds. Not sure if that is stiction or something else.
- Modified3019 2y agoFrom personal experience, walking on snow/ice sounds different based on temperature. From my time of walking to work at 6am in Michigan when I was younger, I could tell the temperature in approximately 10 degree F increments based on the sound. At least between 30F to -10F
- apitman 2y agoAs someone from Arizona I learned relatively late in life that ~15F is when my nose hairs start to freeze.
- nick7376182 2y ago[dead]
- zulban 2y agoThere's definitely many, many different sounds of snow and ice based on temperature, and probably humidity, pressure, etc. Or what those conditions were 2 days ago when the snow fell, what they were yesterday, and what they are now. I live in Canada, Québec so maybe that makes me some kind of subjective authority.
- galaxyLogic 2y agoThis is a well-known phenomenon in Nordic countries I believe. There is a verb "narskua" in Finnish which is only used to describe the sound of walking on snow in below freezing temperatures. Google AI tells me: "The Finnish word narskua translates to "crunch" or "scrunch" in English. It's an onomatopoetic verb that describes the sound snow makes when you step on it in very cold temperatures"
- ubutler 2y agoIt surprises me that this is a surprise, I thought this was a given.
- extragood 2y agoYeah, I'm very certain that I've read about this phenomenon in the not so recent past. To the point where I've intentionally listened for the difference on many occassions since then.
- Wistar 2y agoWhen running some water to warm up before turning on the shower head, I can tell when the hot water has arrived by the distinct change in the sound as it splashes on the shower basin. The splash sounds soften when the water starts to run hot.
- apitman 2y agoThis is the same context where I noticed this. One of those weird things that would be really easy to google but I never did. Wasn't expected to get that random mystery solved today but I'll take it!
- dtgriscom 2y agoI've heard this as the shower warms up while spraying at the (plastic) shower curtain. However, I thought that it was because the plastic gets more flexible as things warm up.
- Wistar 2y agoThat may well be true. In my case the water is splashing on hard porcelain.
- throwaway2562 2y agoCan anyone explain why hot water tastes different to cold water? Is taste not separable from temperature or is there another mechanism at work?
- datameta 2y agoI would imagine it has with the biomechanics of our tongue as it relates to available dissolved minerals.
- ruined 2y agoit makes sense to me that the chemistry of taste would be very sensitive to temperature. but often, heated water has more substances in solution
- thfuran 2y agoI'd expect it has less. Usually minerals accumulate in the water heater.
- Arn_Thor 2y agoTaste is absolutely linked with temperature. Cold vs hot coffee for example. Don’t know exactly why. Most things tend to taste “more” when hot. Could be the intensity of molecular activity, which is what temperature is, that varies and so registers more or less strongly with our taste preceptors
- shepherdjerred 2y agoThis can be more readily observed with food IMO. Hot pizza tastes way better than cold pizza (though, of course, cold pizza still tastes great)
- plaidphantom 2y agoI'd guess much of this difference is also due to the fats in the cheese & meats solidifying at cold temperatures, and thus less readily coating taste receptors.
- 486sx33 2y agoNon paywall link ?
- flypunk 2y agohttps://archive.md/20240509203946/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/09/science/hot-water-sound-cold.html https://archive.md/20240509203946/https://www.nytimes.com/20...
- amelius 2y agoYes, for sure, but at what resolution?
- 4RealFreedom 2y agoI read about the viscosity difference in hot/cold water a while back. Every time I think about it while drinking water, I put my water down. I don't know why it bothers me so much but it does. I feel like I peered into the eyes of God and can never return to normal life.
- neltnerb 2y agoIt took a while to find the original source files [i.e. the ones the author published as supplementary information] Includes raw recordings as well as actual raw results for those of us without NYT subscriptions. https://osf.io/brp2a/?view_only=7f49783ebbf646b29af32ca645246f57 https://osf.io/brp2a/?view_only=7f49783ebbf646b29af32ca64524... Audio comparison video, the fun part for me anyway. https://osf.io/brp2a/files/osfstorage/62fe7d9da06acd0f5b2db35a https://osf.io/brp2a/files/osfstorage/62fe7d9da06acd0f5b2db3...
- ethanholt1 2y agoHumans can sense quite a few strange things. Like the smell of rain up to 100 parts per trillion.
- jval43 2y agoPetrichor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrichor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrichor
- kj4ips 2y agoI was taught to listen to the sound the water made in the sink to tell when the hot was ready. I had always assumed this was something most folks already knew about.
- _delirium 2y agoLink to the preprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.14740 https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.14740