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Re: magnetic pans



I was on a cruise last week and went to a cooking demo. The chef said that
they were using this revolutionary new method of cooking (from Germany).
He had a surface and a pan. He claimed that it worked by "magnetic
induction". You see, you could put your hand on the surface and it was not
hot, but the special pan (which he claimed was "magnetic") when placed on
the surface heated up. I wanted to know how it worked, but only being a
chef, all he could tell me was "its induction". That was not enough for
me. Has anyone else seen this? Does anyone really know how it works?

Cindy

Cindy:
It's not particularly new, but it is probably inductive. We have an
induction cooktop from Sears in our kitchen at home which was bought in
about 92. I know that George Horton at Rutgers used to have such a device
in his kitchen too. The coupling is apparently only effective with
ferromagnetic pans. Aluminum and many stainless steels do not work. When
we go shopping for pots and pans I carry a small ceramic magnet in my
pocket to test candidate kitchenware.

The cooktop gets hot, but only because a hot pan is sitting on it. The pan
begins to heat and cool instantly as you turn the "burner" on an off just
as with gas, but there is no open flame as with gas.

It's been around probably in kitchen units for at least 10 years. George
Horton at Rutgers may know more.

Dewey

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Dewey I. Dykstra, Jr. Phone: (208)385-3105
Professor of Physics Dept: (208)385-3775
Department of Physics/SN318 Fax: (208)385-4330
Boise State University dykstrad@varney.idbsu.edu
1910 University Drive Boise Highlanders
Boise, ID 83725-1570 novice piper

"Physical concepts are the free creations of the human mind and
are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external
world."--A. Einstein in The Evolution of Physics with L. Infeld,
1938

"Don't mistake your watermelon for the universe." --K. Amdahl in
There Are No Electrons, 1991.
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