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Google's Recommendation AI Engine, recAI for short, recommended the following article to me on my smart Android phone yesterday:
The “reverse microwave” is already a reality: it works without electricity and will revolutionize our life
The concept sounded novel and exciting. Microwave ovens heat stuff up by vibrating the water molecules in your food. Reverse microwave, if it is factual, would cool things down.
But, given sensationalist, for-profit media galore, I was skeptical. So, I googled further to check if it was indeed factual. Amongst the many google search results, my eyes zeroed in on stack exchange, a spin-off of the wonderful site called stackoverflow.com:
Does this "reverse microwave" cool food "without electricity and is 100% sustainable"?
However, a good philosopher/skeptic/cynic friend of mine had problems accessing this page. For some strange reason, his wifi blocked it. Here is a screenshot of the question on that page followed by another screenshot of the answer. But, the content doesn't fit into two screens. So, I also copied over the text below. 2024.03.26. Be still. Peace ✌️ ☮️
Asked 2 days ago
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The “reverse microwave” is already a reality: it works without electricity and will revolutionize our life
[...]
Imagine a reverse microwave to cool food instead of heating it. It has just been invented, and it works without electricity and does not emit polluting gases. It’s clear: it’s going to revolutionize our kitchens.
[...]
The reverse microwave was something we’ve been asking for for years, but this one also works without electricity and is 100% sustainable.
They're describing an electrocaloric cooling effect recently discovered by researchers at the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST). However...
The electrocaloric cooling system developed by LIST consists of electrocaloric capacitors and liquid coolant which make rapid heat transfer. Heating of the fluid in the capacitors, causes cooling of the system via application of electric field.
Doesn't that require electricity?
LIST's paper 'High cooling performance in a double-loop electrocaloric heat pump' begins...
Electrocaloric materials pump heat out of a system through a phase transition driven by changing an electric field.
That sounds an awful lot like it needs alternating current electricity.
We present an electrocaloric cooler with a maximum temperature span of 20.9 kelvin and a maximum cooling power of 4.2 watts under the moderate applied electric field of 10 volts per micrometer without any observed breakdown.
Seems like it uses electricity.
Can LIST's new electrocaloric cooling effect ("reverse microwave") cool without electricity and is it 100% sustainable?
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To whether it's notable, it managed to make it into my Google News feed. :shrug: I'm fairly certain the answer is "No". The paper summary mentions "the material does not break down under repeated field cycling" which I'm guessing is where the "100% sustainable" claim comes from. – Schwern yesterday
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@Schwern: I was going to close because EcoNews appears to be just one dude, and their Facebook and Instagram feeds have barely any viewership. On Twitter, though, they have a big viewership (Should I be suspicious about bots?). If it made it into your feed, that is a sign that they have reach. – Oddthinking♦ yesterday
@Oddthinking I just earned "Notable Question", 4000 views, it seems you were right. – Schwern yesterday
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I find it interesting that "ten volts per micrometer" is described as a "moderate electric field". – Mark yesterday
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I do know a way to cool your food down to room temperature that uses no electricity and is 100% sustainable. Step 1: Leave food out on the counter. Step 2: Wait. – T.E.D. 2 hours ago
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The claim, to no-one's surprise, is false.
Electrocaloric heat-pumping requires energy to be supplied (e.g. by electricity). The alternative would be to break the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
The Econews article appears to be a confused report about November 2023 announcements of a recent paper in Science, High cooling performance in a double-loop electrocaloric heat pump.
The Science article doesn't claim that no electricity is required, but talks about its potential efficiency:
Moreover, the maximum coefficient of performance, even taking into account energy expended on fluid pumping, reaches 64% of Carnot’s efficiency as long as energy is properly recovered.
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Regardless of power needs, could one actually use this process to build a reverse microawave that cools food? – quarague yesterday
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@quarague: It's a new technology. No-one has tried yet. So I can't provide an empirical answer to that question. Anything else is guesswork. – Oddthinking♦ yesterday
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I had a conjecture: That this article was originally written in Spanish and translated to English, and the errors were introduced during the translation phase, but I am unable to find a corresponding article on their Spanish page. – Oddthinking♦ yesterday
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@quarague every heat pump is both a heater and a cooler. It just depends on which side you use and which side you expose to the environment. So yes, it could be used as a refrigerator. – Lawnmower Man yesterday
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And this efficiency IS actually significant. There's a reason why dryers are almost entirely different systems compared to machines made just 10-15 years back. I think there were at least 2 major innovations that changed the efficiencies of these machines at such a significant level that they were commercially viable. – Nelson 20 hours ago
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@LawnmowerMan: There is a lot more to that question than whether the technology could cool down a spherical cow in a vacuum. Would the device be as small, as reliable, as safe, as efficient, as long lasting, as "quiet" and as cheap as a compressor? Petri dish style experiments don't show the technology could be used for food. – Oddthinking♦ 16 hours ago
@LawnmowerMan Would you say that a conventional microwave oven is both a heater and a cooler? If so, does that mean it could be used to cool food? – LarsH 6 hours ago
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@LarsH a microwave oven is not a heat pump. – vsfDawg 5 hours ago
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@LawnmowerMan's comment is irrelevant here. In case you haven't noticed, microwaving your food does not make your kitchen chilly. Almost all heating devices (microwaves, ovens, toasters, electric or gas fireplaces, water kettles, space heaters, seat warmers) are not heat pumps. Fridges, AC units, and some fraction of fairly new building heating are heat pumps. – Alex Meiburg 5 hours ago
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@AlexMeiburg this answer is about “electrocaloric heat-pumping” which is, no surprise, a kind of heat pumping. Maybe someone should have said explicitly that there is no such thing as a “reverse microwave”, but what the article linked in the question calls “reverse microwave” is electrocaloric heat-pumping which is not even remotely something like a “reverse microwave”. – Holger 5 hours ago
@vsfDawg I would be inclined to agree, but LM apparently thought his comment was relevant, which could mean he meant something different by "heat pump" than what I think it means. Hence my question. Maybe I should have elaborated on that more. Holger's comment about the described technology not being like a "reverse microwave" helps clarify the issue. – LarsH 2 hours ago
@AlexMeiburg The fact that LM's comment is highly upvoted suggests that a lot of people think it is somehow relevant. A big source of confusion for me, and perhaps for you, was the "reverse microwave" label, which LM implicitly affirmed by saying "yes" to quarague's question about building a reverse microwave. I suspect he meant to say yes only about technology to cool food, not about building a reverse microwave. – LarsH 2 hours ago
@LarsH The article is talking about a new kind of heat pump. It's bizarre they chose "reverse microwave", it doesn't use microwaves and we have a word for an appliance that cools food: a refrigerator, and refrigerator is an insulated box with a heat pump. – Schwern 1 hour ago
@Schwern Agreed. It sounds like the article writer likes to make attention-grabbing claims without much respect for reality. This answer begins with a statement that "the claim" is false, where the claim is about a "reverse microwave" technology. As Holger suggested, it would have been less confusing if the answer had clarified that the following discussion about electrocaloric heat pumping technology did not refer to the claimed "reverse microwave" (whatever that might mean). – LarsH 1 hour ago
@LarsH I thought I made that pretty clear in the question, but I see we did not connect the dots. – Schwern 1 hour ago
I was very much intrigued. This debunking happening so promptly was enheartening. I wanted to know about this website. So, I checked out: FAQ: Welcome to New Users. Here is the content just in case you can't access it:
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I am a new user here on Skeptics.SE. What do I need to know?
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asked Mar 3, 2012 at 11:16
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This answer is written for new users of the Skeptics - Stack Exchange (or Skeptics.SE, for short) - especially those who have just asked or answered their first question, and have been surprised by the feedback.
First, welcome!
We hope you find Skeptics.SE enjoyable, interesting and fun… and not too daunting when you first arrive.
Skeptics.SE is different
Skeptics.SE is different
Public Domain
Skeptics.SE is very different to many online forums (such as mailing lists, bulletin boards, and the commenting systems on blogs.) It is also fairly different to many other web sites in the Stack Exchange family, such as Stack Overflow, that you may be familiar with.
As a result, the Skeptics.SE community can appear to be a little hostile to new users. Many first time users — perhaps even most first time users — are surprised when their contributions are judged against an unexpected set of standards. I urge you not to be disheartened by this. Have a look around, and you will quickly understand how we work. We hope that you will soon learn to appreciate the value that these standards bring in ensuring that the answers you find on Skeptics.SE are very high quality, and, importantly, reliable.
(This is not to suggest that abusiveness is at all permitted. Abusive language is not common here, and if you see any, please bring it to the attention of a moderator and it will be swiftly dealt with.)
Questions must be about a notable claim
Questions must be about a notable claim
One area that is tricky for new users who ask questions, is that we aren't that interested in spending effort researching answers to ideas that no-one actually believes. We want to confirm or disprove real claims that many people think are true. Therefore, we ask that questions address notable claims.
Generally, a high-quality Skeptics question will:
Point to a statement that someone well-known has made (or a number of less well-known sources)
Quote from it (a direct quote, not just a paraphrase)
Express some doubt and ask if it is true.
Answers need references
Answers need references
The biggest surprise to new users is our insistence on references in the answers. Many forums will appear to simply accept at face-value the word of a random internet denizen. Here, we expect to be able to independently check what you are saying — that is a key aspect of being a skeptic — as we want to chase down the evidence, rather than relying on authority or personal expertise. You should expect that people will actually follow up and check your references say what you claim they say.
That means anecdotes, personal stories and testimonials are not allowed. Answers that rely on logic need some evidence that the premises/assumptions are valid. Original research is not generally allowed. Ideally, we would like to see links to peer-reviewed empirically-based evidence. This makes writing an answer much harder, but the good answers are appreciated much more.
Scientific skepticism?
Scientific skepticism?
This site is about applying scientific skepticism. We only accept answers based on independently verifiable applications of the scientific method ("facts").
In other venues, people can get lost in long discussions about what should theoretically happen — think about questions such as: "Will you get more wet if you run or walk, in the rain?" —, but not here. We don't allow such speculation, we expect only scientific trials of these matters to be discussed, and answers to be fully based on those.
Please be very aware of the difference between theory and practice, because users will challenge you on this!
Acceptable tone
Acceptable tone
Given that we routinely tackle "hot potato" questions, it sometimes happens that we get questions challenging basic science, or answers challenging scientific consensus. Both are allowed and welcome.
While you can count on our community being respectful, be advised that, in general, science is the ultimate judge here. If you don't agree with or trust the scientific method, you may be on the wrong site.
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Question Closure
Questions often get put 'on hold'. This does not mean the question has been banished forever. It's an opportunity for the community to improve it; wherever we can, we want to have the definitive questions and answers on a subject. Learn more about what 'on hold' and 'closed' means.
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More suggestions
(If you are not familiar with the Stack Exchange system, you should note that you are currently on Meta Skeptics Stack Exchange, which is an area to discuss the regular Skeptics Stack Exchange which is where the interesting stuff actually resides.)
There is plenty of extra information, including FAQs and help documentation. Even if you are familiar with Stack Exchange software, you should probably read these guides to good questions and good answers.
Conclusion
Conclusion
If you haven't come across a Stack Exchange site before, Skeptics.SE may seem a little alien.
If you haven't come across a skeptic before, the community may seem very alien!
However, if you hang around for a bit, you will see we take legitimate questions very seriously, and we will likely impress you with the quality and thoughtfulness of our answers. If you hang around for a bit longer, you will soon be spoilt - you'll start to be disappointed that other forums don't demand the same standards. A bit longer still, and you'll start to be shocked that politicians, the media, teachers, celebrities, bloggers and your hair-dresser don't provide verifiable references to empirical evidence for their claims.
That's when you'll know you are one of us!
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answered Sep 8, 2013 at 5:52
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"Will you get more wet if you run or walk, in the rain?" can be a good question. Minutephysics has a video about it. – JMCF125 Dec 6, 2013 at 18:41
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@JMCF125: Yes, we have a good question here about it too. There is a constant pressure to answer it based on untested theoretical models. At the time of writing, the top answer, which involves citing an experiment where people actually went running in the rain, has twelve times the votes of an answer that cites an argument "assume the walker is a box..." – OddthinkingMod Dec 7, 2013 at 0:35
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Also, What is a 'notable' claim? is probably the better post to link to, rather than How should we enforce notability?. All in all, I think this a great post, thanks for the head-up! – Shokhet Dec 21, 2014 at 6:19
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@Oddthinking, + 10 for the last paragraph startin with "However...". – Online User May 6, 2015 at 12:06
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"Will you get more wet if you run or walk, in the rain?" - this is absolutely possible to model and calculate with some knowledge or maths and kinematics. – Nick Volynkin Jun 12, 2015 at 17:28
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@NickVolynkin: Yes. See the comments above. We value empirical evidence above such models. – OddthinkingMod Jun 13, 2015 at 1:05
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"That's when you'll know you are one of us!" [citation needed] ;) – Ooker Mar 8, 2017 at 17:32
@Oddthinking A suggestion: to the sentence "Original research is not generally allowed.", append the sentence "This also applies to answers that show that the premises of the question are invalid; such answers must still be cited and may not be original pure logic.". I believe after this change, the FAQ will contain a reference for what I most recently asked you. – Patrick Stevens Jan 2, 2023 at 15:57
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