Under certain conditions, it takes less time to cool a hot system than to cool the same system initiated at a lower temperature. This phenomenon – the “Mpemba Effect”, has been observed in a variety of systems, including water, magnetic alloys and carbon nano-tube resonators. So far, no single generic mechanism to explain this counter-intuitive behavior was suggested. Using the theoretical framework of nonequilibrium thermodynamics, we construct a minimal model that describes this behavior and...