Spontaneous freezing?

Question

Hey all, hoping some of the science-buffs here can answer something for me.

Earlier I put some bottled water in my freezer, later on I decided to get something out, but I pulled out a bottle to check on it — It'd been in there long enough to be cold, but not slushy, let alone frozen solid.

Well, I grabbed one and pulled it out (still liquid), when I tipped it up and pulled it out of the cold freezer into the relative warmth and light to look at it, and it instantaneously froze solid.

Can anyone here tell me why it did that?

Answer 1

You probably were lucky enough to observe an effect of "subcooled liquid". It is possible, when there's no significant irregularity on the bottle's inner surface, that the water will pass the freezing point without beginning the conversion to ice. It's a very fragile state of matter and a slight impulse can trigger the phase transition, turning the whole volume to ice very quickly.

Answer 2

This is a guess but probably the temperature on the bottle when u take from the freezer was drooping near ice but not ice yet then when u put on the warmer side of the refrigerator just complete the solidification.

Answer 3

I've seen this same phenomena in Kuwait quite a bit because we would freeze our water bottles to make em last longer outside. I don't know what causes it, but it is cool to watch.