  I employ the van der Waals theory of Baus and coworkers to analyze the fast,
adiabatic decay of a supercooled liquid in a closed vessel with which the
solidification process usually starts. By imposing a further constraint on
either the system volume or pressure, I use the maximum-entropy method to
quantify the fraction of liquid that is transformed into solid as a function of
undercooling and of the amount of a foreign gas that could possibly be also
present in the test tube. Upon looking at the implications of thermal and
mechanical insulation for the energy cost of forming a solid droplet within the
liquid, I identify one situation where the onset of solidification inevitably
occurs near the wall in contact with the bath.
