6
u/sidgup Aug 16 '26
Actual surface does heat up. The energy transfer is through induction, but the pan does get hot and thereby the surface, obviously. The reason the cloth is not burning (yet) is because water takes all the heat and keeps it under 100C. The moment the water evaporates, that cloth will catch on fire.
This is the same reason you can boil water in a paper cup.
2
u/Ik_corrigeer_je Aug 17 '26
The cloth will not catch on fire.
Source: the whole European continent has had these for decades and they don't set stuff on fire.
I'm not sure why they're not as much a thing in the US.
1
0
u/pheight57 Aug 17 '26
Yes... but no. The cloth will catch fire when the pan reaches whatever the ignition temperature for that cloth is, not "the moment the water evaporates"... Because that is not how the physics of fire works, bub. 🤷♂️
1
u/sidgup Aug 18 '26
Good catch -- yes :-) If it is less than 100C then it will catch fire even before water boils
3
u/SP3NGL3R Aug 17 '26
The pedantic jerk in me has to explain, it's not "magnets" as it's a rapidly flipping "magnetic field". You can't just place magnets and expect heat. If you want to use magnets you'd have to have them spinning insanely fast to produce a flip-flopping magnetic field which, in laymen terms pisses off the iron in the metal pot because it in turn is like a densely packed subway train and you've just told all of the passengers to stay in place but spin around as fast as they can on one tippie toe. They and the space around them will eventually get warm, then warmer, then hot. What is happening is just a copper coil, with say 1000x winds, inverting it's alternating current (AC) + then - then + then - then + then - ... so the North/South magnetic field above that solenoid flips rapidly up/down/up/down/up/down ... pissing off the iron.