h a l f b a k e r yThis ain't rocket surgery.
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Vibration-powered pot legs lift it off the burner when the bubbling gets too intense. Set the dial to control how much of the roiling energy is transmitted to the oleos.
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Annotation:
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If this doesn't yield two and a half parboiled
croissants, there's no justice. [+] |
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Second premise: there's no justice. |
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Conclusion: ... umm, P, or not P. |
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// the roil energy is transmitted to the oleos // |
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Just thinking up a possibility, not the only one by any
means, but I figger there oughta be at least one
answer for BunsenHoneydew (who I haven't seen on
here since halfway back to the last cicadas, seems
like; How ya been!?): |
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Boiling happens when a small bit of water near the
heated surface (bottom) of the pan suddenly
converts to steam; this makes a bubble which is much
less dense than the water, so it rises. But if the water
is cooler, then the steam condenses again and the
bubble collapses back on itself. |
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Now imagine there's a perforated plate / grid / mesh
/ something at distance x (pick it, doesn't matter yet;
in practice, it might, but we're busy theorizing so
don't bother me with practicalities right now) and the
bubble forms at the bottom, rises to the plate, the
plate steals heat, the bubble collapses. So, the
volume of water under the plate had to go down
when the bubble formed, and go back up again when
the bubble collapses. The water isn't compressible, so
there has to be some flow between the area above
the plate and that below. That could be captured
with some sort of reciprocating action. |
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When you get closer to "boiling over", the water
under the plate could boil away, robbing us of our
working fluid just when we really need to get those
legs working. I'll think some more. |
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I read this as Baba Yoga Crackpot and was pleasantly surprised. I like this one.
A bi-metallic coil could be used to raise and lower the legs as well. |
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There are plenty of vibration-powered mechanisms: most are piezoelectric in nature (reverse buzzer device), a few are mechanical (like an automatic watch). This would be the latter, each leg having its own power source. |
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The pot initially rests on its base as well as the legs. Since the burner stand dampens the vibrations somewhat, the lifting motion takes a bit to get going. This is a good thing, since it also takes awhile before a bubbling pot of liquid accumulates enough heat to start boiling over. |
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When it "lifts off" the roiling vibrations, undampened, will increase quite a bit. It will continue to rise until the equilibrium of dial-setting vs. roiling-intensity is reached, typically say a couple of millimetres to centimetres off the burner. |
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(It will also clatter against the burner stand as it lifts off) |
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As a sidenote, since the legs are powered independently, the heat is more evenly distributed across the base, since a leg closest to a hot-spot will end up ever so slightly more extended than the others, in equilibrium. |
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