Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 5, 2025

Near-Infrared Temperature Measurement Technique for Water Surrounding an Induction-heated Small Magnetic Sphere
Published on: April 30, 2018
Anomalous heating in a colloidal system
Avinash Kumar1, Raphaël Chétrite2, John Bechhoefer3
1Department of Physics, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada.
Abstract:
We report anomalous heating in a colloidal system, an experimental observation of the inverse Mpemba effect, where for two initial temperatures lower than the temperature of the thermal bath, the colder of the two systems heats up faster when coupled to the same thermal bath. For an overdamped, Brownian colloidal particle moving in a tilted double-well potential, we find a nonmonotonic dependence of the heating times on the initial temperature of the system. Entropic effects make the inverse Mpemba effect generically weaker-harder to observe-than the usual Mpemba effect (anomalous cooling). We also observe a strong version of anomalous heating, where a cold system heats up exponentially faster than systems prepared under slightly different conditions.
Related Concept Videos
Colloids
Colloidal precipitates
Mechanisms of Heat Transfer II
Mechanisms of Heat Transfer I
Mechanisms of Heat Transfer
Conduction, accounting for approximately 3% of body heat loss at rest, is the process of exchanging heat between molecules of two materials in direct contact. This can result in both heat loss and gain. For instance, when the body is submerged in water, which conducts heat 20 times more effectively than air, it can either lose or gain significant...
Coagulation

