Is this a myth? Pyrmaids replace fridges?

[flyingpig]

I heard it when i was little from TV.

Is it true that you can put food into a box in the shape of a pyramid with a sqaure base and it will work like a fridge?

How does it work? Why does it work? Is this true or just really mean hoax?

 

[xts]

You must try it. I suggest to use piece of meat (or fish - it also smells well) and keep the pyramid in your bedroom.

 

[DaveC426913]

Let's default to myth until there's any evidence to support it.

Actually, let's default to 'who knows' until we even have some facts about the claim. How big? What material? What configuration? What conditions?

 

[flyingpig]

No I mean just a pyramid made of cardboard

 

[Ryan_m_b]

A pyramid made of cardboard? I'm going to call myth on this one. If the air temperature is (as it was in London yesterday) 30 degrees how is a cardboard pyramid going to cool to the 4 degrees that my fridge is kept at?

 

[flyingpig]

I think it only works for warm food like bananas or last night's left overs. I mean it obviously isn't going to work for ice creams

 

[Naty1]

Just a mean hoax. Unless it is (a) located inside a fridge or (b) located in outer space.

Otherwise it would overturn all of thermodynamics...and revolutionize most of science as well.

 

[Bloodthunder]

Mythbusters tried it, and they came to the conclusion that nope, doesn't work for food, doesn't work for sharpening blades, doesn't work for something else that I can't remember.

 

[DaveC426913]

...doesn't work for something else that I can't remember.

Yeah: matter.

 

[LostConjugate]

Sometimes memories from when we were a kid are distorted. They seem very real but they are not actually what happened.

 

[FlexGunship]

Sometimes memories from when we were a kid are distorted. They seem very real but they are not actually what happened.

EDIT: The answer is no. The temperature inside of a pyramid-shaped cardboard box will not significantly differ from ambient temperature as there is no means to overcome entropy. There might be a very small gradient from the bottom of the box to the top of the box given that cooler air is more dense and will tend to settle on the bottom, but even that will equalize over time due to Brownian motion.

Ask yourself the reverse: could you make an oven out of an upside-down pyramid box? And if so, could you make it large enough that the resultant heat would exceed the combustion threshold for the material? And if so, does that mean that you could make a SHAPE that, when properly scaled, is combustible?

Opinion and commentary: I love crazy ideas.

 

[Hepth]

The only thing I could see is that it acts as a bread-box, blocking sunlight and other sources of light that would promote cell growth of fungi/mold/etc exactly as a breadbox does. The shape shouldn't matter, but perhaps people that "tried" this with say, a piece of bread, would notice a drastic increase in shelf life from a piece of bread sitting in the open.

 

[DaveC426913]

Ask yourself the reverse: could you make an oven out of an upside-down pyramid box? And if so, could you make it large enough that the resultant heat would exceed the combustion threshold for the material? And if so, does that mean that you could make a SHAPE that, when properly scaled, is combustible?

You cannot extrapolate this.

Me, I was imagining some sort of heat sink, placing the bulk of the volume in contact with a convective cooling surface.

Again, if we were to give this its due (which is way more than it deserves), we'd need the details of the claim.

 

[Newai]

I'm guessing that some comment about the cool interior of a pyramid versus the blistering heat of the desert outside snowballed into the fanciful claim that it's like an air conditioner, and thus capable of keeping food cold.

 

[LostConjugate]

I won an award guys!

 

[flyingpig]

So how do food in the real pyramids store food?

 

[DaveC426913]

So how do food in the real pyramids store food?

I'm detecting an attempt at humour here...

 

[Pythagorean]

Fire Tetrahedron Dislikes!

[URL]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Fire_tetrahedron.svg[/URL]

 

[Bloodthunder]

http://www.hpb.gov.sg/uploadedImages/HPB_Online/Health_Topics/Food_for_Health/Healthy_eating_-_the_basics/Healthy%20Diet%20Pyramid.jpg

This pyramid seems to be keeping food quite nicely...

 

[phinds]

... doesn't work for something else that I can't remember.

Uh ... it was "anything"

 

[flyingpig]

I'm detecting an attempt at humour here...

Oh no I was being serious...

http://www.hpb.gov.sg/uploadedImages/HPB_Online/Health_Topics/Food_for_Health/Healthy_eating_-_the_basics/Healthy%20Diet%20Pyramid.jpg

This pyramid seems to be keeping food quite nicely...

Lol shut up

 

[FlexGunship]

You cannot extrapolate this.

Me, I was imagining some sort of heat sink, placing the bulk of the volume in contact with a convective cooling surface.

Again, if we were to give this its due (which is way more than it deserves), we'd need the details of the claim.

Well, I can see where you're coming from, but the original post involved the REPLACEMENT of REFRIGERATORS. This implies an active heat exchange system (as opposed to a heat-sink). A heat-sink will never lower the temperature of something below ambient, but a heat exchanger will.

I appreciate your point, but if there is an actual separation of kinetic energy, then one part gets colder than ambient, and one part gets hotter then ambient. In this way, I could consider a pyramid capable of refrigeration to also be capable of concentrating heat.

The A/C in your car blows cold air on you, in exchange, there is a condenser that's getting very hot under your hood somewhere.

 

[DaveC426913]

Well, I can see where you're coming from, but the original post involved the REPLACEMENT of REFRIGERATORS.

We do not know this. The OP was young.

 

[DaveC426913]

So how do food in the real pyramids store food?

I'm detecting an attempt at humour here...

Oh no I was being serious...

No, I prefer to think you were not.

Otherwise I'd have to think you asked a totally nonsensical question. What "real" pyramids store food? And what does that have to do with keeping them cool?

 

[FlexGunship]

I heard it when i was little from TV.

Is it true that you can put food into a box in the shape of a pyramid with a sqaure base and it will work like a fridge?

We do not know this. The OP was young.

Fair enough. I guess I didn't come to the same realization as everyone else; I was directly addressing the original question.

 

[256bits]

I just got myself a Pyramid Hat, and I feel smart and cool
http://www.pyramidhats.com/effects.htm

 

[Tosh5457]

I just got myself a Pyramid Hat, and I feel smart and cool
http://www.pyramidhats.com/effects.htm

2 awards in one single thread now!

 

[Nik_2213]

Okay, a lid of any reasonable shape may be able to exclude flies and dirt, but degradation due to bacteria, fungii and natural enzymes would begin as soon as the food item approached room temperature ~20'C...

FWIW, I used to know some-one who used a big, skeletal copper-tube pyramid as a meditation hutch. The idea was that it excluded pollution by the radiation from domestic appliances, cell-phone masts etc etc...

She could not understand why I giggled whenever I saw that tubular contraption...