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Magnetic Stovetop

Cooking with Curie
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Carol wasn't the most graceful of people, but she sure could cook. She regularly had all four burners fired up at once: durian crêpes, golden rice pilaf, ginger gnocchi, and country fried chicken scaloppini. No one knew how she managed to combine all these dishes into a single meal, but it was delicious.

Unfortunately for Carol, a fair number of her meals ended up overturned on the stove. It wasn't her fault; saucepans with long stirring spoons resting in them would mysteriously topple over as soon as she turned her back. And stacking the pot of doughnut frying oil on top of the back two paella dishes was the best place for it to cool down.

After emptying her fourth fire extinguisher in three months, Carol decided she had had enough of tippy pots.

Down in the lab, Carol placed a fresh spool of copper wire on her solenoid winding machine, and cut out a few metal disks with the plasma torch. Fusing ferrous metals to copper is a tricky task, but Carol was as good a welder as she was a chef. In short order, she had affixed a steel plate to the bottom of her favourite sauté pan, and managed to melt the bottom of her boots on some hot slag.

Turning on the exhaust fan to clear the room of burning rubber, Carol then grabbed her trusty soldering iron. A couple semiconductors, a handful of passive components, and several dozen solder joints later, the driver circuit was complete.

Carol was lamenting on how polyester shirts these days simply didn't hold up to drops of molten tin when the winding machine chimed--its task was finished. Rushing back up to the kitchen with her newly minted device, Carol proceeded to affix it to her stove with a pneumatic riveter retrieved from the spice cabinet.

Popping off the control panel, Carol began to poke around inside the stove. Five or six loud pops later, with the smell of ozone wafting in the air, she found the desired electrical attachment points. She closed everything up, and stepped back.

Carol placed the modified pan on the stove, and flipped a switch. The lights dimmed a bit, and a dull hum emanated from the vicinity. The electrician was puzzled when she had asked for a 3 kW electrical hookup to a gas stove, but not many people are like Carol.

Carol attempted to pick up the pan, but it wouldn't budge no matter how hard she pulled. Even using the overhead gantry crane simply lifted the entire stove. She was about to fetch the hydraulic jack out of the linen closet, but decided that would be silly. It worked!

All her metal cooking utensils were austenitic steel or alpha-beta titanium and therefore not magnetic, but induced eddy currents still provided a bit of resistance when stirring. Carol shrugged, and figured she could use the exercise. Besides, burning more kilocalories meant more cooking to make up for it.

Carol celebrated her new invention by making dragon fruit pannenkoeken and saffron Scotch eggs.

Aq_Bi, Jan 18 2018

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       Carol reminds me of my mother. It's a good thing she didn't turn her back on the solenoid winding machine. [+]
Wrongfellow, Jan 18 2018
  

       Carol should use an induction motor instead of just magnetic coils, and then with the right choice of stirring utensils won't have to stir either.
RayfordSteele, Jan 18 2018
  
      
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