Worst thing that can happen with a pressure cooker in an ordinary kitchen?

what-if.xkcd.com

7 points·Bluestein··5 comments

Even if your "ordinary kitchen"'s pantry stocks both fluorine gas and liquid oxygen, I've some doubts about heating the former to 700 C (1300 F) in an kitchen pressure cooker. Especially the rubber-ish pressure seal. Then there's the lungs of the cook to consider, when fluorine gas "starts escaping through the safety valve".

(Yes, Randall's lawyer probably vetoed more-realistic escapades, due to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Marathon_bombing But for the literal worst that could happen, he should have written about the chance of Vacuum Decay in the pressure cooker triggering the end of the universe.)

> chance of Vacuum Decay in the pressure cooker triggering the end of the universe

Now that is the epitome of bad results, indeed.-

Spontaneous autoinduced universal annihilation. Not good, no.-

PS. Acronym spells SAUNA :)

>the epitome of bad results, indeed.-

Wait until you see the way the rice comes out when it expands to the max and overcooks a bit too much.

"Sticky" just doesn't do justice to such a monolith :)

It takes quite a lot of pressure and heat to initiate the fusion of that many particles in a confined space like that, producing a new, heavier element in the process ;)

You might have hit a new fundamental state of matter. Might wanna check!

Pressure cookers have rubber seals and a safety relief valve to prevent any sort of explosion.

To create any real, significant danger, you would have to *intentionally* disable this valve. Which essentially means your kitchen in no longer "ordinary".

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