Mystery Solved Physics

Tea time

How kettles whistle

WET WHISTLE  Studying a whistling tea kettle could help engineers design quieter household plumbing and industrial pipelines. 

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By Andrew Grant

- More than 2 years ago

Leave it to the English to solve the mystery of a tea kettle’s whistle.

English physicist Lord Rayleigh proposed in 1877 that water molecules bouncing back and forth in the spout produce the whistle, but new experiments show that little swirls of steam are responsible.