[ExI] Help with freezing phenomenon

[spike]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
...
>...As to microwave heating: have you not noticed that microwaves - as
commonly used in ovens, anyway - naturally heat the outside more than the
inside, without any fancy setup?  Seriously, try cooking a fist sized chunk
of meat (chicken, ground beef,
whatever) straight from the freezer for, say, 5 minutes...

Ja but we are talking two different things.  If you mean frozen meat, all
bets are off, and ja I agree it thaws outboard first.  But we have options
with an unfrozen blob of meat or a brain, such as going to a higher
frequency, which is a shorter wavelength, and collimating the beam.  To gain
an intuitive feel for what I mean, put a thick piece of steak in the
microwave and note how it has a bad habit of exploding.  I had the
unfortunate experience last year of cooking a hunk of turkey in the
microwave and having it explode about two seconds after I opened the door.
Hot bird flesh hit me in the eye.  It hurt.

We would have a vested interest in seeing that this does not occur with some
hapless prole's brain.  Particularly if that prole is me.  Mine is a fun
brain in which to live.

>...Since this is the default behavior, why bother with complicated
mechanisms, or inserting things that might damage the brain?  Immerse in
something just above freezing, reach temperature equilibrium, then lower the
temperature while applying microwaves (to most of the surface: you need a
channel for the heat to escape the core of the brain; a uniformly hot
surface would prevent this).

Ja, part of what I had in mind originally with the plate is to use it as a
heat sink, so the freezing process could actually start inboard and progress
outward.  You are right, it might not be necessary.  But if we use the plate
as a microwave reflector, it allows the use of a higher frequency shorter
wavelength beam so that the tissue penetration is greater and perhaps more
uniform.

spike