Thread: How hard do I need to slap a chicken to cook it

Based on the idea that thermal energy is hectic kinetic energy. Is it better to slap repeatedly, or one big slap? If more than once, how many and how hard? If only once, how hard?

I hear ovens work better

Of course they do. That's boring though

Originally Posted by Jason Summer

Of course they do. That's boring though

Why don't you do the maths, then?

Assume a mass for your hand/forearm and a speed for the slap and apply E=mv²/2 to work out the energy imparted per slap.

Then you can assume the specific heat capacity of flesh is close to that of water, which will allow you to calculate, per kg of meat, how much energy is needed to raise its temperature to say 70C, which I should think will be enough to cook it.

And if you put the formulae into a spreadsheet, you can play around with the speed of your hand as a variable, to see how long it takes under various speed scenarios.

In reality there will be other aspects, to do with the thermal conductivity of flesh and its tendency to disintegrate due to repeated bruising, etc., but for a first approximation I suggest leaving all that aside, to get an idea of what you would be looking at.

Let us know how you get on. I think you may be surprised how much effort it requires.

The specific heat of water is 4.186 joules per gram per degree Celsius, if I want to warm it by 50C and it weighs half a kilogram I need 105,000 joules of energy (4.186*50*500). If this is mv²/2 and my hand weighs an eighth of a kilogram the speed will be 1300 meters per second (105,000*2/0.125, then square root this), which is 4700 kilometers per hour or about 3000 miles per hour.

Did I do that right? Honestly, the idea that I could heat something up that much just by slapping it seems so far-fetched that I expected to need the relativistic formula for kinetic energy.

Questions like this always remind me of the unexpectedly bad effects of relativistic baseball: "What would happen if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90% the speed of light?"

https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/

Originally Posted by anticorncob28

The specific heat of water is 4.186 joules per gram per degree Celsius, if I want to warm it by 50C and it weighs half a kilogram I need 105,000 joules of energy (4.186*50*500). If this is mv²/2 and my hand weighs an eighth of a kilogram the speed will be 1300 meters per second (105,000*2/0.125, then square root this), which is 4700 kilometers per hour or about 3000 miles per hour.

Did I do that right? Honestly, the idea that I could heat something up that much just by slapping it seems so far-fetched that I expected to need the relativistic formula for kinetic energy.

Looks reasonable. But from this it is evident that a series of repeated slaps at lower speed will be more effective, since one presumes tha tone wants to be able to find something identifiable to eat, after the collision!

If you are slapping the chicken with your hand don't forget your hand will be about the same temperature as the chicken so your hand gets cooked too.

Originally Posted by Bufofrog

If you are slapping the chicken with your hand don't forget your hand will be about the same temperature as the chicken so your hand gets cooked too.

That's what oven gloves are for

Didn't General Patton slap a chicken once? He got it so wrong that it damn near cooked his goose instead.

Originally Posted by zinjanthropos

Didn't General Patton slap a chicken once? He got it so wrong that it damn near cooked his goose instead.

Oh, so THAT'S why he's called "Blood'n'Guts" Patton.

Originally Posted by anticorncob28

3000 miles per hour. Did I do that right? Honestly, the idea that I could heat something up that much just by slapping it seems so far-fetched that I expected to need the relativistic formula for kinetic energy.

The SR-71 Blackbird had to be made of titanium, and the panels so loosely connected to allow for heat expansion that it leaked fuel. The skin reached 450 degrees F in places at a max speed of 2,193 mph. Not implausible!