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https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/09/science/hot-water-sound-cold.html

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Why You Can Hear the Temperature of Water

A science video maker in China couldn't find a good explanation for
why hot and cold water sound different, so he did his own research
and published it.

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Video
[09tb-hot-w]
A clip from a video made by Xiaotian Bi as he studied the different
sizes of bubbles found in cold and hot water. Can you guess which
side is cold and which is hot? The answer is below.CreditCredit...
Xiaotian Bi

By Sam Kean

May 9, 2024

Most people are quite good at distinguishing between the sound of a
hot liquid and the sound of a cold one being poured, even if they
don't realize it.

"Every time I give a talk and I say, 'Surprisingly, adults can tell
the difference between hot and cold water,' people just go like
this," said Tanushree Agrawal, a psychologist who, during a video
call, mimicked audience members shaking their heads no. But research
she completed at the University of California at San Diego
demonstrated that three-fourths of the participants in her
experiments could in fact detect the difference.

You can try it yourself. Put on your headphones or listen closely to
your computer or phone's speaker and hit play on this audio
recording.

Can You Hear the Temperature?

Guess which one is hot and which one is cold.

Could you tell which sound was hot and which was cold?

If you said the first one was cold, congratulations: You're in Dr.
Agrawal's majority.

In general, cold water sounds brighter and splashier, while hot water
sounds duller and frothier. But until recently no one really had
evidence to explain the difference.

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