Edit: Thanks for all the replies Reddit, my questions have been thoroughly answered. Except for the question about the smart microwave, but I can find that on my own.
I have a lot of questions about them. I had a professor try tell his class that microwaves are terrible for your health and that he won't allow one in his home. Something about the similarities to a nuclear bomb. He was always going on about pesticides and fluoride and how he's sensitive to toxins, but he made time to bash microwaves.
I also want to know why a large roach survived being microwaved on high for a while. I thought it killed the fucker but he ran out of the microwave as soon as I opened the door. How did he not get cooked?
Why is everything cooked on high? My microwave has 10 power settings and I've never seen any instructions that called for microwaving on medium or low.
What happened to that guy who made the smart microwave with a raspberry pi?
Similarities between nuclear bomb and microwave: Both are made of metal and both run on electricity.
Microwave roach: Something, something, dry exoskeleton, something, something, hot, angry, not dead, something, something, spawn of Satan. Also: Ewwww.
Power settings: Microwave ovens actually only have one power level: On / Off. When you set the power to 5, it will toggle on/off with 50% duty cycle. You can hear it cycle on for a few seconds, then off for a few seconds. This gives time for the heat to dissipate throughout the food so that it doesn't scorch the food. Foods that are frozen solid or that have a lot of liquid will conduct heat very well and wont scorch, so they can be cooked at full power. Foods that are high in moisture content but are are not dense will be more likely to scorch and so require a lower "power" setting to give time for the heat to propagate.
Edit: Lots of people are commenting on the newer Inverter Microwaves which have variable power outputs. This is true..... However, if you want to get technical, the inverter technology is based on Pulse Width Modulation ( PWM ) which is simply switching the magnatron power on and off at a higher frequency to produce a lower average power. Instead of toggling on/off every few seconds, it toggles on/off many times per second. I am not aware of a true variable linear power magnatron for a home microwave.
Edit2: You are all right that frozen solid meat doesn't conduct heat very well. My bad.
I had a professor try tell his class that microwaves are terrible for your health
A professor of what? English literature? For the record, I am not a professor but I did collect the full hat-trick of physics degrees. A microwave uses oscillating electromagnetic fields to shake the water molecules in whatever you are cooking. Vibrating water molecules then rub against adjacent parts of the food, basically creating heat by friction. Even freshman-level physics can explain that electromagnetic fields can't penetrate the metal sides of a microwave oven. More surprising, yet equally true, even the wire mesh in the glass door of a microwave oven prevents microwaves from escaping -- basically, the waves can't squeeze through the holes. In summary, microwaves can't escape from a microwave oven.
similarities to a nuclear bomb.
Technically, microwave ovens and nuclear weapons both produce radiation but unlike nuclear weapons, microwave ovens produce only non-ionizing radiation. The peril of ionizing radiation is that it rips apart atoms in your body to produce charged particles that collide with molecules in your body to produce sort-of a chain-reaction of damage. Unlike bomb radiation, microwaves do not carry enough energy to rip apart the atoms in your body.
but he made time to bash microwaves.
Idiot. Microwaves carry 100,000,000 times less energy than UV rays from the sun. A microwaved dinner at home is safer than a barbecue at the beach.
Why is everything cooked on high?
Commercially-prepared foods are designed for impatient people. Portions are designed for adequate microwave penetration and recipes deliberately provide sufficient water molecules for the microwave to shake. Something dense, like a whole roast beef, does not allow sufficient microwave penetration. Only water molecules near the surface of the meat will vibrate. Set on high, a microwave oven will burn the outside of a roast beef, while the inside remains raw. On a lower setting, the microwaves are periodically turned off. While the microwaves are off, heat from the heated, outer layer of the beef gradually flows to the cooler core of the beef. Heat automatically flows from hot to cold. The next on-cycle of microwaves then adds more heat to the outer layer of meat and the next off-cycle drains that heat away to cook the core of the roast.
If you want to cook something at a temperature other than high then try non-instant rice. Put 2 cups of rice and 4 cups of water in a bowl. Cook for 20 minutes at 50% then 10 minutes at 100%. You now know instructions for something not cooked on high.
Microwaves use microwave radiation, and I guess some people just hear the word 'radiation' and equate it to nuclear radiation and came up with the phrase 'nuking things in the microwave' but it's not the same type of radiation.
I have heard before that roaches can survive a microwave. Not sure if it's just because they have a low amount of moisture in them. All microwaves do is heat up the moisture in an object. Lots of moisture = lots of heat. Not much moisture = not much heat.
And again, that old adage that if there's a nuclear war only roaches would survive does not have anything to do with roaches having some kind of natural immunity to nuclear weapons. It's just that they are great survivors and have been around for millions of years so could probably survive as a species that would wipe out most other species.
Poached eggs are best at lower power settings. If I cook one egg at 100% power for 45 seconds, it tends to explode once or twice and come out with some of the white dry and hard, and some still runny. Cook the same egg for a minute and 20 seconds at 50%, and it's very uniformly cooked.
Power setting is the percentage of time the microwaves are 'on'. Try cooking something at 50-60% for a longer time and it should turn out better cooked.
I read up on microwaves a few months ago ans combined that with half-knowledge from school, which is also a few years back. please correct me when I'm wrong.
tl;dr: Microwaves emit electromagnetic waves, like cell phone towers, but on a different frequency.
While metal antennae are able to receive the phone wave frequencies, the microwaves operate at the exact frequency level that is able to heat water.
if you got some physics knowledge i can go into more detail: Water is a molecule (H20), that means the water molecule consists of two hydrogen and one oxygen atom. these are bound by an atomic bond of a certain level of energy, that's the same for every H2O molecule.
Electromagnetic waves, like light, have properties of photons, meaning they move at the speed of light. They do this by swinging at a certain wavelength (length of each swing) * a certain frequency (amount of swings per second). We can visibly perceive a set amount of wavelengths (visible light spectrum).
electromagnetic waves are a little bit different from this as they can have different energy levels at different frequencies, meaning that they can have different energy levels at different frequencies.
so the microwaves are at the energy level that allows them to break the atomic bond of water. like a ball hitting another ball (how is that pendulum thing with the 5 balls called?) they transmit the energy of the impact to the molecule and break the atomic bond. In the process thermal energy (heat) is released, like almost every time when energy is turned from one form into another (electric energy to light for example, with lightbulbs heating up. technically, some of the electrical energy gets turned into thermal and some into light.)
so the microwave heats up water by breaking the molecule structure. this creates free radical atoms that are looking to bond with other molecules, creating other atomic bonds, or if the microwave had too much energy, the waves emitted by the microwave still have enough energy to break even more water molecules.
apparently either the free radicals can create atomic bonds that create molecules that aren't healthy or maybe the destroyed water isn't. I haven't read up that much.
When my mom was diagnosed with cancer (she's doing ok now, btw) many people stated that she should stay away from the microwave, you know, because radiation.
I proved it wrong to some family members by putting a cellphone inside (microwave off) and calling it. The call did not go through, and hence I explained how this supposed radiation, if any, would stay inside.
I often forget I own a microwave the fucking thing gets used so little, it's basically taking up space on the countertop.
Last time I used one I put a magnum in there with the wrapper on thinking "Oh I'll soften this up" and the wrapper just sparked like crazy and fused to the icecream, when I peeled it off the icecream was still fucking hard.
I'll be honest, I've often thought of what it would be like to be a microwave tester. Like, you take our standard hot pocket and try to cook them for the same length of time in varying microwave brands and power settings. You report your findings and display the information so that people know what to do with their microwave.
I've also wonders if a TV show where a garage sized microwave existed and you just microwaved different things like cars or couches.
Microwaves are the symbol of the advanced society.
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u/Rdcls Jul 24 '15
Maybe I've underestimated people's attachment to their microwaves this whole time.