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This has nothing to do with microwave technology at all. A sad face is warranted.
by moogleii 13y ago
This has nothing to do with microwave technology at all. A sad face is warranted.
- jostmey 13y agoReverse microwaves? The author of the post must be completely, 100% scientifically illiterate.
- coderzach 13y agoI think she meant reverse microwave oven. As in, rather than heating fast, it cools fast.
- petercooper 13y agoYeah, I think it's just a pragmatic layman's term for a good headline. I've complained over the years to my wife I'd like a "reverse microwave" for exactly this use, so it certainly clicked with me.
- fragsworth 13y agoBut anyone who usually understands "microwave" as electromagnetic energy will find this title extremely confusing.
- aneisf 13y agoI think most people on HN are familiar with both microwaves and microwave ovens. It's not really hard to see which one the author was going for.
- chc 13y agoThat is like calling ice a reverse fire. If the technology doesn't have anything to do with microwaves, I don't see how the "reverse microwave" adds anything but confusion. It's not as though "chills beer in 45 seconds" is so vague as to require a strained microwave analogy.
- vermillion 13y agoI loved this comment, why is it being downvoted?
- gojomo 13y agoThe headline writer is simply speaking figuratively, for maximum effect in constrained space. This is easily understood by a general audience, but sometimes misunderstood by the extra-literal/extra-critical mindset often seen in HN threads. In the headline, 'Microwave' stands synecdochally for 'microwave oven' and then also for the more-general category 'fast-heating appliance'. When there are multiple ways to interpret something, assume the interpretation that credits the writer/speaker with some sense, not an interpretation that is most-literal or most-amenable as the setup for an insult.
- Amadou 13y agoI voted you up for truth. 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_effect
- waps 13y agoThose who know physics would hopefully know that a cooling microwave would be a blatant violation of the second law of thermodynamics.
- mbreese 13y agoI must admit... Before I read the article, I spend a moment trying to figure out how they got microwaves out of the the spin energy of water molecules. Thankfully, that doesn't happen.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]