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Reminds me of that old headline, "Percy Spencer finds a way to melt a candy bar in his pocket." Seriously, people, this discovery is not really about being abl
by jawns 12y ago
Reminds me of that old headline, "Percy Spencer finds a way to melt a candy bar in his pocket."
Seriously, people, this discovery is not really about being able to unboil eggs. It's about a way to quickly and efficiently restore common proteins that have been misformed through heat or other processes.
- jackweirdy 12y agoI think I’m lacking context - what’s the non-literal meaning behind that headline?
- atrus 12y agoHe walked in front of a radar system with a chocolate bar in his pocket, it melted, and the microwave was born.
- wuliwong 12y agoMelting a candy bar in your pocket is a normal occurrence, "unboiling" an egg was previously impossible. We used to refer to the example of "un-baking" a chicken as an example of a process that was irreversible. I'd think unboiling an egg is of similar ilk.
- bronson 12y agoNot until the 1940s it wasn't (search on candy bar): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Spencer#Career http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Spencer#Career OP just means the headline is talking only about the somewhat mundane event, not the much bigger implications.
- wuliwong 12y agoHaving a candy bar melt in your pocket is mundane. Un-boiling an egg is NOT mundane. Maybe I'm not understanding your point, obviously you aren't claiming that before the 1940's candy bars didn't melt in people pockets?
- bronson 12y agoThat's exactly my claim. Otherwise why would Percy Spencer have been carrying it there, and why would he have been surprised when it melted? Unboiling an egg is quite mundane when compared to what else you could do with egg-unboiling technology. (I'll leave that speculation to the other fine comments on this post)
- Kluny 12y agoI think the parent commenter is trying to make the point that candy bars commonly melt in people's pockets by processes other than microwave radiation. Body heat, or the weather in Arizona can both cause the same effect. Microwave radiation near your crotch is, fortunately, not common at all. Unboiling an egg seems a lot less mundane than a candy bar melting, to me.
- bronson 12y agoNobody is comparing unboiling an egg to a candy bar melting. And nobody cares whether body heat or Arizona typically melt candy bars (they do) since it's totally irrelevant to the Percy Spencer story. Please tell me you read this thread from the beginning? To repeat: "OP just means the headline is talking only about the somewhat mundane event, not the much bigger implications." And, yes, unboiling an egg is a mundane headline when compared to its much bigger implications.
- wuliwong 12y agoMundane basically means common. Unboiling an egg is not common, a candy bar melting in one's pocket is common.
- bronson 12y agoPlease don't omit the "when compared to" clause. Driving is mundane when compared to flying a fighter jet in combat. But driving is not mundane. And I don't understand why you're still saying the candy bar melting in Spencer's pocket isn't surprising. It's his story. Spencer himself said it was surprising. Can't you take his word for it?
- wuliwong 12y agobtw, I like your handle. :) I'm an ex-philadelphian, migrated south for the winter.