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Hey Randall! If you put a microwave in a sub-zero walk-in fridge, and after the device had reached equilibrium with ambient conditions, you connected the microwave to mains power, then put a chunk of ice in the microwave and turned it on at full power, would the ice ever melt?

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I guess the answer would be similar to the toaster-in-fridge question[1] from a previous what-if, namely: yes, it would melt.

[1] https://what-if.xkcd.com/155/

but what if microwaves don't heat solid ice at all, they heat the water that forms on the ice because the microwave is at room temperature? google "how to melt glass in a microwave".

That's very cool. But if you had a standard 1000W microwave, heat from the electronics would probably get the job done eventually.

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