You can’t just post this and not give context. I keep looking at this and go, “How?”
I’m guessing they forgot about it and left it on until whatever was in it boiled dry/burned off, and then heated the pan to the point it began to melt. I’d bet it took at least overnight if not through the weekend. Some pans will take longer to get to this state than others depending on what they’re made of.
The fact they didn’t burn the place down is sheer luck.
When I was in highschool my mother left a pot of stock simmering and went to work, except instead of leaving it on low she left it on high. I came home to a smoke filled apartment, and the pot was full of chicken bone shaped black carbon. As I grabbed the handle and brought it toward the sink molten metal poured out of the heavy base into the sink. It was scary and I’m grateful I wasn’t severely burned and that our place didn’t burn down!
I discovered the hard way when I had my own business with me as the only employee that if you leave a coffee machine with only a small amount of coffee in it on overnight, there will be no fire.
But good luck trying to get the smell of burnt coffee out of your office for the next week.
I’m guessing he was trying to boil water in a aluminium pan and forgot about it? I’m also guessing said roommate must have left, because a burning non-stick coating would be rather noticeable.
I mean, I did something kinda like that as a kid, I forgot a aluminium bottomed steel pan once and managed to melt the base (thankfully with no non-stick coating fumes).
Really old research found aluminum in the plaques once, it was actually from contamination in the water they used to wash the brains for the staining agent.
There’s no solid evidence either way.
IMO the biggest problems with aluminum is
- a low melting point :)
and
- It’s reactive to high ph, so you have to be careful what you cook in it.
That is an untruth. There has never been medical proof of this. It was a citation that was read out of context of one random study on Alzheimer. And the internet misinformationed it to the max. Have you heard that you should buy Baking Soda without Aluminum in it? Lie! Baking Soda has NEVER had Aluminum in it. But people constantly repeat this ridiculous myth. Just another fact to ponder, In many Asian nations, aluminum sauce pans have been used for decades (Japan is a great example), and the level of Alzheimer’s is no different than the rest of the world.
Aluminum vapours are toxic and deadly. Apparently they used to make tanks with aluminum, but then tankies who survived a direct hit inhaled some containing it and died from that instead.