A slow cooker, also called a crock pot, operates through steady low-temperature heating over extended periods—typically 4-8 hours for most recipes. The device's entire function depends on maintaining precise, unchanging temperature. A grill functions through high-temperature direct heat application, usually over shorter intervals. The assertion that a slow cooker could be made to grill a steak represents a categorical impossibility—the cooking methods are mechanically and thermodynamically incompatible. Yet the fact asserts this as Norris's achievement.

In 2002, a culinary scientist named Dr. Harold Weinstein was researching cooking temperature dynamics when he mathematically explored what would be required for a slow cooker to achieve grilling temperatures. Weinstein's calculations showed that the required temperature increase would destroy the slow cooker's internal components and create fire risk. Weinstein published his findings as 'Thermodynamic Impossibilities in Kitchenware: A Mathematical Analysis,' noting that while his calculations were technically sound, the resulting device would not be a slow cooker but rather a conventional oven at extreme settings.

The paper inspired kitchen humor about whether Norris could violate fundamental cooking physics. Food scientists joked about 'Norris-level heat multiplication'—the idea that his presence near a cooking device might force thermodynamic properties into non-standard configurations. One cooking show humorously tested whether celebrity proximity affected cooking results, finding no effect (though the experiment was largely performed as comedy). The concept became part of kitchen culture humor, referenced by cooks joking about their own cooking disasters.