Poll of the Day > Are there certain things fridges don't work on?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Today in science class we learned that microwaves work by heating up the water molecules in food and that heats it up. So if you put something with no water like a brick in the microwave and turn it on, it won't get hot. Neat, huh?

So I was wondering if there's something similar for refrigerators. Can you put something in the fridge that won't get cold?
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Ya, anything with a very low thermal conductivity such as pure alochols, silica aerogel and styrofoam

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While microwaves do heat up water, they don't heat up only water. Polar molecules that aren't water will heat up too. Plenty of things that aren't water are still polar.

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Wouldn't the moisture in the air inside the microwave still heat and transfer some of that to a brick on contact? Maybe thats not enough moisture to matter.

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I don't think so. Refrigerators work by cooling the space itself, so it shouldn't matter what materials you put inside one.

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Philoktetes posted...

So if you put something with no water like a brick in the microwave and turn it on, it won't get hot.

Darn I was looking forward to leftover brick for dinner :/

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can you test if you can open the fridge from the inside?

Spoilers: you can't unless it's made to stop morons from suffocating

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Lokarin posted...

Ya, anything with a very low thermal conductivity such as pure alochols, silica aerogel and styrofoam

Even then, they still work. It just takes longer.

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I think a fridge works on everything...
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BlazeAndBlade posted...

can you test if you can open the fridge from the inside?

Spoilers: you can't unless it's made to stop morons from suffocating

So, any refrigerator that uses a magnetic seal instead of a mechanical latch? That's just about any home refridgerator manufactured in the last several decades.


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stars

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It depends on what you define as a 'thing' and 'has no effect on'. A fridge works by lowering the temperature of the air around it so even if you put, say, a terrible heat conductor in it, there WILL still be an effect, even if it's extremely minor. If you put something that's hyper-cold into a standard fridge it may not stop it from heating up by much but it will delay it if only by a few milliseconds. Technically speaking even light would sort of slow down just a wee bit due to the colder air. However the effect would be so small as to effectively be meaningless. In order for it to have 'no effect' you'd need an item suspended inside a perfect vacuum inside the fridge. Even THEN there would still be an ever-so-tiny effect from the natural gravity of the fridge as opposed to the item being outside of the fridge. So it really depends on what you classify as 'no effect' or a 'thing'.

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Sundays

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