Problems at Los Alamos included those that can always be expected to arise in any isolated community, General Groves explains (in Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project):
They were aggravated by the fact that the two dominant sectors of the group were composed of people of almost directly opposite backgrounds: scientists with little experience outside the academic field; and uniformed members of the armed services, nearly all nonprofessionals, who had little experience in, or liking for, the academic life and who were interested simply in bringing the war to a quick and successful end.
There was always some undercurrent of feeling between small segments of these two groups, though Oppenheimer, Parsons, Tyler and Ashbridge made every effort to bring them together. On social occasions, for instance, they included both civilian and military personnel. On one evening at least, it was a notable success.
This was a dinner given by Tyler and his wife, soon after their arrival at Los Alamos. Shortly before, an item had appeared in a daily column syndicated in several Eastern newspapers advancing the theory that if one wished to expedite the freezing of ice cubes in a refrigerator he might do so by filling the ice trays with boiling hot water. In a casual way, the hostess mentioned the item, and wondered whether any of the guests knew whether the freezing of water could, indeed, be hastened in this way. Any qualms she might have felt about a topic of conversation that would absorb the interest of the leading physicists of the United States were now dispelled. One highly eminent scientist stated that the proposal was a ridiculous one. Another said that the theory was quite possibly true. Small slide rules emerged from several coat pockets; pencils and pads of paper were requested; there were heated arguments in which some of the military guests with engineering background joined, as did some of the scientists’ wives, while others looked quietly resigned, as if they had many times endured similar scenes. There is no record that any agreement was finally reached; but later it was rumored that several participants in the discussion hurried home and conducted experiments in their own refrigerators.
Physicists remain divided on the effect‘s reproducibility, precise definition, and underlying mechanisms.
Boiling water will indeed form ice before tepid or even cold water. However, it will take the longest to fully freeze.
TANSTAAFL