Re:Reverse Microwave Chills Beer In 45 Seconds
by waps on Thursday October 24, 2013 @03:30PM
(#6607341)
Those who know physics would hopefully know that a cooling microwave would be a blatant violation of the second law of thermodynamics.
Re:Reverse Microwave Chills Beer In 45 Seconds
by cookingrobot on Thursday October 24, 2013 @06:27PM
(#6608445)
No it wouldn't - as long as the device, target and environment heat up as a whole. For ex, laser cooling where a laser reflects off a surface with more energy than it started with.
Re:Reverse Microwave Chills Beer In 45 Seconds
by Amadou on Thursday October 24, 2013 @05:25PM
(#6608088)
Oddly enough, your response is basically the same sort of overly-narrow literalism that gojomo was complaining about, just from the other direction.
Re:Reverse Microwave Chills Beer In 45 Seconds
by serf on Thursday October 24, 2013 @07:00PM
(#6608638)
No, it's not.
"reverse microwave" is correct in a sense, because as gojomo pointed out, the author meant it as a way to convey the concept of "rapid-heating appliance".
"You can't do x because of thermodynamics" actually was incorrect, and didn't take into account multiple specific instances which show that closed systems can create such results.
But... don't discount the profound disappointment that a headline like that generates in those of us who do know how a microwave works. We were teased with the idea of learning something we thought would alter our understanding of the universe -- some sort of microwave version of the peltier effect[1] -- only to find out it was something as pedestrian as poetic license.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_effect