Wednesday, October 10, 2007

For the record/crackpot schemes

For the record, I have mentioned the following idea for years (let's say since about 2000).

The following -should- be invented:

The microwave-like cooling-appliance: a machine that fills in the analogical gap of 'oven is to refrigerator as microwave is to ??'.
Purely from a blackbox functional perspective, it is an object that is needed. Some things need to be cooked for health/taste reasons, others need to be cooled/frozen for similar reasons. Simple technology allows heating (fire, burning wood/gas, electrical resistance for an electric oven) and slightly more complicated technology allows cooling/freezing (rapidly expanding gasses (freon as a substance makes this easier) 'removes' heat). Then microwave technology comes along, a little more complicated than 'PV=nRT', which using the resonant frequency of water, vibrates those molecules using microwaves, implemented in a very small appliance. To fill in the functional gap, that is to, say, take a cup of hot tea, and 'reverse the process' making cooler, 'iced' tea, we need a physical process that can quickly (< 1 min) reduce temperature.

I'm not saying I have any idea how to do this, just that it needs to be done.

Which brings up the scientific problem: if a refrigerator just displaces heat (it makes things cold in one spot, but in a sense moves that heat somewhere else), why isn't there a similar operation in reverse, that is, an oven that concentrates heat in one spot -at the expense of making things cooler elsewhere-?

Yes, yes, yes, 2nd law, blah blah blah. Radio exists, work out the theory later.

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