The Coffee House

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/scien...77946.html

Physicists say they have devised an experimental device which has the potential to “turn boiling water into ice without using any energy” – and without violating the laws of thermodynamics.

While their discovery appears to be “thermodynamic magic”, the University of Zurich researchers said it is possible to achieve these results without shattering any of the fundamental laws of our universe.

The second law of thermodynamics effectively says heat can move from a warmer object to a cooler object but not the other way round. But thanks to a piece of equipment more commonly deployed in hotel minibars, known as a Peltier element, the Swiss team has shown for the first time an object can be cooled significantly below room temperature without any external power.

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Wow, this really does sound like science-fiction .

I wonder what it can be used for?

Impressive! But mighty useless.

(04-20-2019, 06:16 PM)Dust Bowl Wrote: [ -> ]Impressive! But mighty useless.

I don't know: it might be useful if someone needs a large quantity of ice, for whatever reason.

Then again, it sounds like it would require quite a bit of energy to set it up. The process involves heating a copper bar to above boiling point, and then transferring the energy from the water to copper heating element. The second part of this process apparently doesn't require an input of energy - but the first part certainly would. So, I suspect it might only be economical to produce ice like this if you're doing it on a very large scale.