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Probably a stupid question, but will we ever have something like a microwave to make things cold? Is there a reason this can't exist?
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
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This is technically possible. The cosmic microwave background, i.e. space, is extremely cold (barely above absolute zero) so it basically acts as a heatsink you can pump infinite amounts of heat into. It turns out that if you can make the food radiate heat out into space and prevent it from absorbing more heat from sunlight, it's possible to cool it below ambient temperature. This is also a completely passive process so it requires no electricity or other form of active energy input.
The problem with this is that doing it with food might be impossible. At the moment, we can only really do it using objects with special coatings that have been optimized for this purpose.
Here's a couple interesting videos that explain how it works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDRnEm-B3AI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNs_kNilSjk
Put a heat sink into your scrambled eggs