I was teasing him about it, doing an impression of him with a beaker with a potato in it and a glass stirrer.
"Now, all of cooking is just a chemical interaction, so I shall use borium instead of heat to boil this potato."
And in true geek fashion, he said, "Borium wouldn't do that. Chemicals burn, but they don't replace heat. And that's the wrong chemical"
"I was joking! ...and yeah, chemicals can replace heat. An enzyme is designed to cause reactions to occur at a lower than nornal temperature."
"By Jobe, that's it!" he exclaimed, as though he had just thought of the most fun thing ever, "The right enzyme, and I can boil a potato at room temperature... cooking the potato is just a manner of breaking down the starches... like digestion... this could work"
We made table salt in class once, starting from (IIRC) hydrochloric acid and something else (google tells me lye). No one was brave enough to test it, though.
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"Now, all of cooking is just a chemical interaction, so I shall use borium instead of heat to boil this potato."
And in true geek fashion, he said, "Borium wouldn't do that. Chemicals burn, but they don't replace heat. And that's the wrong chemical"
"I was joking! ...and yeah, chemicals can replace heat. An enzyme is designed to cause reactions to occur at a lower than nornal temperature."
"By Jobe, that's it!" he exclaimed, as though he had just thought of the most fun thing ever, "The right enzyme, and I can boil a potato at room temperature... cooking the potato is just a manner of breaking down the starches... like digestion... this could work"
And then he wanders off.
Nerd.
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We made table salt in class once, starting from (IIRC) hydrochloric acid and something else (google tells me lye). No one was brave enough to test it, though.
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I would probably eat the salt though.
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