User talk:ZoomingGuy2

Induction cooking

Hi. It does not seem to me that your recent edits succeeded in making the article "a little less misleading," and indeed, it seems to me they did the reverse. Removing the clarity of "cast iron, carbon steel and stainless steel pans" makes the article less accessible; saying "ferrous metals" is inscrutable for lay people. Also, I don't think that StackExchange is a reliable source you should be citing. (Also, I don't understand how you can call an edit that removes the word "typically" a "dummy edit"; that changes the meaning, it needs to be clear from the edit summary!) Is your take different from mine? Please help me undertand the flaw in my analysis. Feel free to move this to the article talk page if you think that's better, thanks. jhawkinson (talk) 09:47, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi, I agree with you that the paragraph has become less accesible due to my edit. Sorry about the dummy edit, I'm new to Wikipedia editing and I had to make a change to leave a comment but I realize now that I could've just added a space in between paragraphs. As for the StackExchange source, I was originally just going to put citation needed, but tacked StackExchange on to have something. I also realize now that a site with user generated content is not a reliable source, and should be removed.

The reason it seemed misleading to me initially is that when reading the paragraph it gave me the impression that non-ferrous metals would not heat up at all if placed on an induction cooktop, which is not technically correct. They would still heat up, just not nearly as much as a ferrous pan would. This is not because of a fundamental physical limitation, however, but just in the way that the cooktops are designed. One could lower the AC voltage applied to the coil to achieve an equivalent amount of heating in a non-ferrous pan. The problem is that the current in the coil would have to be proportionality higher to achieve the same power output, which would cause the coil itself to dissipate more heat, reducing the efficiency of "useful" heat generated.

I felt that this paragraph should give some insight into this, at a level even a layman could understand. ZoomingGuy2 (talk) 16:19, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

So…do you want to correct it, or should I just revert your edit? Also, your claim about "would still heat up" is unsourced and I don't think it's right — I think you're confusing induction cooktops (the appliance) with induction heating (the technology). If I put an aluminum pot on my induction cooktop, the cooktop will attempt to sense the cookware and decide there is nothing appropriate on the cooktop and not output a magnetic field and then turn itself off. Now, not all cooktops are the same and original research is not appropriate, but I am under the impression that you would be very hard pressed to find an induction cooktop that behaves differently. (I suppose you could probably trick it by putting a steel pan next to an aluminum pan.) jhawkinson (talk) 00:00, 15 October 2024 (UTC)