Cold Evidence
After returning from a trip of several days, a woman opened her freezer. It was as cold inside as it should be, and the food stored there was frozen.
Yet when she looked at a clear, lidded container that had been in the freezer since before she left, she decided to throw away the food, just to be on the safe side.
Both before she left and when she returned, the container held nothing but ice made from water. No one had entered the house while she was away.
What did the ice make her worry about?
Let’s unravel your preconceptions, one by one.
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Hints
Take it little by little, just as much as you need.
Hint 1
She compared the ice she found when she returned with how it had been before she left.
Hint 2
What caught her attention was the shape of the ice.
Hint 3
Before she left, there had been several separate pieces. When she returned, there was a single sheet of ice spread across the bottom of the container.
Check the Answer
Answer
She was worried that the freezer might have warmed up while she was away and then cooled down again.
Explanation
Before leaving, she had put several ice cubes in a shallow food-storage container.
When she returned, the cubes had lost their individual shapes. There was now a single thin sheet of ice spread across the bottom of the container. They had not simply clumped together.
The shape made her suspect that the ice had melted while she was away, spread out over the bottom as water, and then frozen again.
The food was frozen now. But that did not mean it had stayed that way throughout her absence. She did not know how warm it might have become, so she decided to throw it away as a precaution.
She had not confirmed that the food had actually spoiled.
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