cooking an egg
2005-09-08 14:40:00.794545+00 by Dan Lyke 9 comments
How to cook an egg with two cell phones and an AM radio.
[Edit: on reflection, obvious hoax: see comments]
2005-09-08 14:40:00.794545+00 by Dan Lyke 9 comments
How to cook an egg with two cell phones and an AM radio.
[Edit: on reflection, obvious hoax: see comments]
[ related topics: Cool Science Food ]
comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):
#Comment Re: made: 2005-09-08 19:18:11.348702+00 by: ebradway
I'm going to have to try it this weekend.
What purpose does the AM/FM radio serve? Does it matter what frequency it's tuned to?
#Comment Re: made: 2005-09-08 19:30:34.084499+00 by: Dan Lyke
I'm not sure, but I'm also skeptical about whether this will work with a modern cellphone. I assume that the radio was just to provide noise for the phones to send data, but modern phones are soooo darned efficient that I'm skeptical.
So tell us if it works, eh?
#Comment Re: made: 2005-09-08 21:06:23.27657+00 by: ebradway
I'll take video of it!
#Comment Cute, but... made: 2005-09-08 21:52:06.45156+00 by: baylink
digital cell phones are 200-600mW max (and no handheld was *ever* over 600mW), and if you're anywhere near a tower, it will go down proportionately.
Naw; this was just a goof.
#Comment Re: made: 2005-09-09 13:21:15.916749+00 by: Dan Lyke
Yeah: I think the battery in my phone is 8-900 mA/H at 3.7 volts. Let's round up to an Amp and 4 volts, 4 Watt/Hours is under 3500 calories (again, liberally rounding up). Large eggs are 24 oz per dozen, or 56 grams per egg, so if you took all the energy in my cell phone battery and assumed the egg was water ("consider a spherical cow of uniform density"), you'd be lucky to raise the overall temperature of the egg 60°C. Egg whites set between 144° and 149°F , so from room temperature we're talking a 40°C raise, unless that egg covers 66% of the antenna broadcast area and the energy absorption is 100% (which would be kind of ridiculous, given that your head doesn't totally block out one side of cell phone coverage) and all of the battery's energy goes to broadcast (having held the phone during long conversations, I can tell you that quite a bit of it is wasted in battery heat), this isn't possible.
#Comment Re: made: 2005-09-09 13:28:56.179095+00 by: Dan Lyke
(Oh, and that assumes a relatively short talk time, because radiation from the egg will cool the egg. I think I've talked for 40 minutes on my phone without denting the battery too much, I probably have at least two hours of talk time, so that'd be 30°C per hour at 100% conversion to heat.)
#Comment Re: made: 2005-09-09 14:00:39.291306+00 by: meuon
You are forgetting the phase modulating effect of the heterodyning waves from the two cell phone's combined with the sonic re-enforcement provided by the stereo. You also get a compounding cascading tesla wave via the crystal oscillator in each phone and the radio.
Oh, and I have just invented a catalytic fuel injection system that lets you burn water in a normal gasoline motor instead of gas. :)
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Seriously, diathermy - heat by radio waves - works, but is bound by normal laws of physics, ie: energy is energy, you still got to have enough to do the job. In the page they mentioned 3watt cell phones, that would be a 'bag phone'. not a handheld.
#Comment Re: made: 2006-02-07 03:00:29.731294+00 by: meuon
http://slashdot.org/articles/06/02/06/156236.shtml
Someone finally slashdoted this.
#Comment Re: made: 2006-02-07 03:19:06.107286+00 by: Dan Lyke
Yeah, I just modded that entry insightful.