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Microwave Efficiency

No, not a post about complex wave physics.

When you have to microwave something for a minute and a half, do you hit 90 instead of 1:30? I do. It’s more efficient. What I noticed this morning, however, was that I opted to heat something for only a minute and a half as opposed to two minutes or a minute forty-five in order to save a keystroke. So, my food was slightly cooler than it would have been, but I didn’t have to press an extra button. I realized today that I do this often such that I don’t really deliberate about it.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 15th, 2009 at 12:36 PM and is filed under personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

7 Responses to “Microwave Efficiency”

the brother Posted June 15th, 2009 at 5:13 PM.	I too do something like this, though I think 90 is still inefficient since 88 is pretty close and eliminates a move between digits. I generally limit times to multiples of 11 seconds or one minute (if there is a one minute button). Typical times are: 11s, 22s, 33s, 44s, 1m, 77s, 88s, 99s, 2m, 3m, etc.
Mom Posted June 23rd, 2009 at 3:13 PM.	My children get more interesting by the minute.
Rev. Mr. Dylan Schrader Posted July 3rd, 2009 at 2:16 PM.	Okay, you got me. I started hitting only multiples of eleven (up to 99 seconds). Then we got a new microwave, which has minute buttons and +30 seconds.
the brother Posted July 3rd, 2009 at 9:29 PM.	A 30 second button as well? That makes things so much more complicated. For ~90s what is the most efficient method: 1m plus 30s, which requires two pushes and one move, or 30s three times, which requires three pushes and no moves? Perhaps 88s is best, provided one doesn’t need to press start.
Rev. Mr. Dylan Schrader Posted July 4th, 2009 at 6:55 AM.	The deal is this: If you hit a number 1-7 and nothing else, it starts it for that many minutes. At any time during the cooking process, you can hit the +30 seconds button, and it adds 30 seconds to the remaining time. To enter an arbitrary time, you have to hit “time cook” first and then the amount and then “start.”
the brother Posted July 5th, 2009 at 8:34 PM.	Interesting. If you aren’t going to be distracted while the food is cooking, I’d say the most efficient method is to press whatever minute is greater than the ideal cooking time and then open the door whenever the food is done. That only requires two actions (three if you clear out any remaining time) but it does require some amount of focus and risks overcooking. The best “set it and forget it” method will require a bit more thought. Will +30 start cooking as well? What happens when pressing 8 or 9? My gut feeling is that the time to enter is best determined by rounding to the nearest 30s, but that seems it won’t work for 0:45≤t≥7:45, where t is the ideal cooking time. Exceptions could be made for those cases, but that hardly seems the elegant solution.
the brother Posted July 5th, 2009 at 8:37 PM.	That should have been 0:45<t≥7:45.

Microwave Efficiency

7 Responses to “Microwave Efficiency”

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