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How do microwaves work? · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Or Hey, I know you like to joke that any
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: physics question I ask you could be answered with the
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Big Bang. I think it's a pretty solid answer for
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: any science question, you know, like why does why does
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: this happen? And it's all because of the Big Bang? Man,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: you are like a deep philosopher of science. Sometimes I
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: think I just just heard you say the Big Bang
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: too many times. Well, I don't mean to burst your bubble,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: but I think I finally found a question where the
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Big Bang is not the valid answer. What could not
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: be due to the Big Bang? Keep listening. Hi, am
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: orhammy cartoonists and the creator of PhD comics. Hi. I'm
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Daniel Whitson. I'm a particle physicist, and I owe my
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: existence to the Big Bang, as do we all, as
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: does this podcast. That's right, even this podcast so Welcome
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: to Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Welcome to our podcast, in which we
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: explore things big and small, things out there, big and small,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: out there in the universe, and even right here in
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: our homes, in our everyday lives. Something that we use
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: almost too much. I think perhaps that's right. One of
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: the joys of being a physicist is looking around you
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: all the time and wondering how does that thing work?
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: And that extends to the cosmos and the stars and
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: the big question to the universe, but it also applies
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: to just stuff happening around you. You know, why does
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: that leaf dance that way? Why does the ball bounce
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: this way? How do I make this thing happen? Or
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: how does this thing in my kitchen do it's thing?
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: How does this magic happen? There's crazy physics all around us, right,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: and potentially dangerous sources of radiation in our own homes.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: That's right. Basically the whole universe is crazy physics. I mean,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: that's a good way to summarize the whole thing, right.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: That's a that's an alternate answer to the Big Bang?
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Why why does why does this particle do that? It's
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: just crazy physics. It's better than the answer being crazy physicists. Right,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: physicists crazy because of crazy physics. I'm not sure about
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: the cause and effect there, Yeah, um, it might be
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: the becoming a physicist makes you a little bit crazy
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: because you see the world through different eyes. Right, everything
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: you look at you try to understand in terms of
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: an equation or model, or try to dig down and
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: understand how this emergent phenomenon can be explained by tiny
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: little particles bumping up against each other. Yeah. So on
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: this podcast we usually tackle very big topics like the
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: size of the universe or where did the Big band
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: come from? But sometimes we like to tackle smaller topics
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: or topics that are in everyone's everyday life. Yeah, So
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: to be on the podcast, we'll be tackling something that
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: everyone has in their kitchens. So today on the program,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: we'll be asking the question how does a microwave work?
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Where I guess more specifically, how does a microwave oven work?
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: You know what a microwave is. You put the stuff
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: in there, you press the button, It spins, it beeps,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: it turns around, and it comes out hot. Right, But
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: how does that actually happen? What's the physics that's going
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: on there? Yeah? How do microwaves work? I mean, we've
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: had them around for a long time. It seems right
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: to heat up our foods are in our snacks, in
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: our hot pockets. They first appeared in kitchens in the
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: late fifties, I think, so it's been decades. Hatties around
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: for a while, Yeah, And like many useful inventions, they
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: were discovered by accident. They were discovered by a physicist
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: poking around trying to do one thing, discovered something else useful,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: another way to save time. Right, for a lot of people,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: it's sort of it's sort of a convenience appliance. Like
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: if you were to heat things up in the regular oven,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: it would just it would take much longer, but in
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: a microwave, things seem to get hot really fast. Yeah,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: and you know, I don't want to take any of
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: this the em out of this this podcast episode, but
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: I'll admit that the microwave in our kitchen at home
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: has been broken for about five years. And yeah, it's
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: built into the double oven thing we have, so to
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: get repaired, we have to replace the whole thing. So
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: we just sort of put it off forever. And the
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: truth is we haven't really missed it or never really noticed.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: You've lived without a microwave for five years. It is possible, people,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: you can live with that a microwave. Yes, it turns
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: out you can make popcorn on the stove. So what
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: do you use it for? It is like a storage
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: You store some pots and dance in it or did
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: you clean Did you clean it before you abandoned it?
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: I wonder if you open this now, it's never been cleaned. No,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: you know our pet rats like to hang out in there. Um, okay,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: we don't use it for anything. It just uses up
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: space in the kitchen. Wow, So you don't use a
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: marc So if you have to heat up a quick thing,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: you just what do you do? You eat it cold? No,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: we got a toaster oven, We got an electric water kettle,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: We got a stove top that serves for mostly everything. Yeah,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: it turns out life is possible without a microwave. But
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: it's a fascinating object in so many people's kitchen, and
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: lots of people swear by it, so I thought it'd
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: be interesting to dig into the physics of it. It
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: turns out that very few people know how microwave works,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: and the people who think they know how microwave works
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: probably have it wrong. Yeah. I was reading through these
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: notes and I realized I have no idea how a
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: microwave oven works. Or I thought I did, but it
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: turns out that I that I don't, And so that
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: sort of brings up an interesting question, like there's so
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: many people out there who use a microwave. Almost nobody
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: knows how it works. How come nobody seems to have
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: spent any time thinking about it or wondering about it.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Is it just physicists who want to understand, like how
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: this stuff around us worked, and everybody else is sort
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: of happy to just press a button and get their popcorn.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: I wonder if it's a generational thing. You know, at
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: this point, most people grew up with the microwave. You know,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: it's sort of like, um, it's just there. It's like
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: nobody sits around wondering how a refrigerator works or how
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: a pencil works. You know. I think my kids ask
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: me how refrigerators work. I want to know how things
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: work that existed in the universe before I came to be.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: I'm not like big Bank. That's old news. I'm only
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: interested in the news stuff. It's not trending, the big Bang,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: it's not trending. I don't care. So it's something that
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: everyone is probably familiar with, and maybe most people own.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: But we were wondering how many people out there and
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: know how a microwave actually works. That's right. So I
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: walked around the streets of Aspen, Colorado, a place where
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: people come from all over the world, with all sorts
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: of different backgrounds. And I asked folks if they knew
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: how a microwave work. The most people in Aspen, Colorado
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: own multiple microwaves. They probably own multiple microwave companies, That's
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: what I mean. And they say, I don't care as
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: long as the share price keeps going up. Yeah, So
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: I think about it for a second. If you were
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: skiing out there and askm in Colorado and then a
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: scruffy physicist asked you, hey, how does the microwave work?
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: What do you think you would answer? Here's what people
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: had to say, best guess microwaves electricity fastened through food. No,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: electricity turned into something genetically modifies your food? Yeah, has
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: right onto, right on too? And how does that eat
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: up your food? The moistation of food is what calls
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: the uh yes electricity, the Mormon quality. Can you find
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: that jet English? Something around electricity coming down in waves?
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: You say, start and then what happens microwaves? No, I
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: do not know. Do you know how a microwave works?
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: I do, Oh, how it works? Maybe not? We pressed
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: plus through a second bottom then start, all right. It
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: seems that those microwaves company owners in Asthment don't really
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: have much of an idea of how they work. Well,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: I was amazed at the huge variety of answers. I mean,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: we got radiation, we got genetic modification to the foods um.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: There's that one guy who seemed to understand how microwave worked,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: but he could only explain it in Japanese to his wife. Well,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: that's the same with me. I I know how it works,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: but I only know how it works in Japan. I
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: like the guy who said, how does the microwave work?
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: You just press the start button. That's how it works, right,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: I know. Like I was asking for tips, like help,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: I need to use the microwave and I don't know
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: how it works. Please give me tell me my food
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: is cold, Like I'm out here on the street with
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: my recorder looking for tech support from my microwave. Well
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: he would have been helpful. Yeah, yeah, and uh, and
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: you know, and you heard a couple of people say
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: what I think is a common trope, which is that
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: the microwave heats up the water, right, which I think
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: is a common misunderstanding. We'll get into it later, but
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: that's not how a microwave works, right, Yeah, that's what
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: I thought too. And also some people said it has
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: with electricity, like somehow it uses electricity to zap your food. Yeah,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: and you know it does use electricity. It's not like
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: it's a coal powered microwave or something steampunk steampunk microwave,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: like you have all the steam, but you converted to microwaves. Yeah,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: somebody out there probably has done that, you know. On
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: a recent episode about gravitons, I wondered out loud what
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: a gravitron was, and that moment in our podcast I
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: think might have generated the most listener response because I
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: got dozens of emails from people who had written in
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: their childhood a gravitron an amusement park ride. So that
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: generated the most the most emails of anything we've ever
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: done so far. Actually know that, because that was on
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: the latest season of Stranger Things. Yes, you're right, there
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: was a scene in the gravitron Um. So if anybody
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: out there knows of a coal powered microwave, please right
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: in and say, d as a picture. I'd love to
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: see it. Well, so, um, not a people. A lot
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: of people know how a microwave works, and I didn't
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: know apparently how a microwave works, so let's get into it.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: But maybe first what you talked about how normal ovens work,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: like the ones with gas or the ones that are electric,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: not the microwave kind. So a normal oven basically works
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: by heating the air inside the oven, and then the
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: air heats your food, right, And that's you'll notice this
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: because if you open a normal oven, you get like
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: a rush of hot air that comes out and burns
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: your face, right, Whereas if you open a microwave, you
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: don't notice that. In a regular oven, you you rely
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: you like, you put the energy into the air, and
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: then you rely on the air to give the energy
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: to your food. That's right. And remember, on a microscopic level,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: what's happening is that the air is heating up, and
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: that means that the air molecules are getting faster. Right.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: We talked about temperature in another episode. Sort of crazy concept,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: but the simplest idea is that you're just speeding up
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: the air molecules, so they're zooming around faster and faster
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: inside the oven, and sometimes they bounce into your food
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: and they deposit some energy, so they heat up the
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: molecules in your food. Right, maybe your oven is gas
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: and his little flames or it has heating element if
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: it's an electric oven, and that heats up the air, right,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: which speeds up those molecules, and they bounce into the
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: molecules of your food and heat them up. Yeah, when
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: you put it like that, it seems really inefficient to
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: think about ovens like that. The air and then the
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: air you have to wait for the air to bump
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: into your food, and then it only bumts into the surface, right,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: the outer skin of your food. So that's why it
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: takes a while to heat up in a regular oven,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: that's right. And they're super inefficient in my house because
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: every time I'm baking something, somebody will walk by the
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: oven every five minutes and open it up. What's in there,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: and then all the hot air rushes out and you've
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: got to heat up the whole oven again. I'm surprised
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: you're a regular oven works, Daniel. I'm gonna put a
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: lock on it or something. But yeah, that's over camp
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: fire every night. That things exactly why. Um, that's exactly
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: why the food in your oven heats from the outside
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: in because the outside is the only part exposed to
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: the air. Right, So the outside of your food, the
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: outside layer gets heated by the air, and the inside
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: gets heated by the outside. Like you're cooking the turkey,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: the skin gets hot first, and then the heat of
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: the skin cooks the next layer, and that layer cooks
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: the next layer, and that layer cooks the next layer.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: So it's sort of like heat propagating through the turkey,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: but has to start from the outside. That's the hottest part, right,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: And that's kind of then that's kind of good sometimes
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: because that's where you get you know, crunchy crusts. Yeah, exactly,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: you get this browning effect from the hot air, and
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: that's because the air can get to a sort of
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: a high enough temperature to be like caramelization, and that
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: gives you the good browning stuff. And you know, sometimes
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: you want that. You want the outside to be crunchier
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: and hotter than the inside. Like for a turkey, you
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: don't want the breast meat to get up to a
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: certain temperature because then it gets dry, but you do
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: want the outside of a higher temperature. So for things
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: where you want the outside hotter and the inside a
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: little bit cooler, a convection of it is perfect, Okay,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: So it doesn't sound super efficient, but it's an old,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: old timey trusted technology we've been doing. We've been using
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: ovens for thousands and thousands of years. It doesn't break down,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: that's right. I mean in the old days, before we
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: had gas ovens and electric ovens, an oven it was
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: just like an enclosed space with a bunch of burning
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: wood in it. Right, And people still do that, like
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: a pizza oven. Right, you can get up to eight
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: hundred degrees or nine degrees, and you see these things,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: they're just like they got wood burning in the back.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: And it's just an enclosed space to trap the heat.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Because if you have a fire without walls around it,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: then the heat just rises and you can cook over it,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: but it's much less efficient. So you just enclose it
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: to sort of capture the heat um where you are.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: And that's that's an oven. That's all an oven is
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: is a heat source and something to capture it to
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: the air stays hot. All right, that's how normal ovens work.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: So let's get into microwaves. But first let's take a
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: quick break. All right, we're talking about microwave ovens and
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: how they work. So Daniel break it down for us
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: how does a microwave oven work? Well, maybe we first
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: we should figure out we should talk about what a
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: microwave is, right, Like, what is this thing? We tackled
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: the word oven, now we're tackling the word microve waves. Right,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: but first let's break it that into micro m wave.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: What is the letter N really means? What is letter I?
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Three hours later we'll get to the answer. It's pretty simple. Actually,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: a microwave is just a kind of light. Right. Remember
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: that all these things gamma rays, X rays, UV light,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: visible light, um, radio waves, these are all just parts
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: of the electro magnetic spectrum. It's not like a special
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: kind of ray or a special kind of particle, or
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: you know, laser is just plan o light. It's just
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: plain old electromagnetic radiation, right, And a microwave just refers
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: to the wavelength of that radiation. So remember, the thing
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: that differentiates a gam array from ultraviolet light, from visible light,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: from X rays or radio waves is just the frequency
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: of the wiggling. Right. All these things are electromagnetic fields
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: oscillating up and down and left and right, and the
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: speed at which they oscillate, how many times they oscillate
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: per second, right, or equivalently, the wavelength of their oscillation, right,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: how long that wave is UM determines which one it is.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: And so radio waves are the ones with a really
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: long wavelengths, Like there are radio waves that have lengths like,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: you know, dozens and dozens of meters. Microwaves. It's sort
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: of a confusing name because microwaves are radio waves with
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: shorter wavelengths, so down about twelve centimeter. But it's only
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: shorter compared to radio waves, which have like dozens of
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: meters of wavelength. They're not short comparable light visible, they're
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: not like nanometers, they're not microscopic, that's right, They're only
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: micro compared to really big radio waves. Oh scale thing. Huh.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: But so they're microwaves are actually like megawaves compared to
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: like the visible light that we all see every day, yeah,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: which is wavelengths of like hundreds of nanometers, which is tiny, right,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: These things have wavelengths that are in the twelve centimeters.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: That's you know, the size of your hand or something
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: like that. So these things have real physical wavelength Wait
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: are you telling me that physicists names something in a
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: confusing way? What are you telling me that you're surprised
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: that physics name would be confusing. Touche touche. Anything named
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: in the pre Jorge epoch is defined to be confusing
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: because you were not involved. Yeah, yeah, the PJ. We
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: don't like to talk about it. You know, it's a
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: dark period in the history of physics, but it does exist. Okay,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: so they're they're microwaves, but they're not really micro they're
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: actually like, you know, twelve centimeters. It's sort of like
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: the length of your hand. Yeah, yeah, exactly, And so
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: that's what a microwave is. And then you might wonder, like,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: all right, but you know, how does that heat my food?
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: If I shine my flashlight at a turkey, it doesn't
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: cook it, right, not, Well, it depends on your flashlight,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: doesn't it. If your flashlight is the large Hadron collider,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: then yeah, maybe, yeah, that's what I mean. It's it's
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: it's it's not that the regular light doesn't cook, it's
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: just that it doesn't cook as well. Yeah, that's true.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: It does deposits of energy, it just doesn't have that
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: much energy on it. But it's essentially the way a
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: microwave oven works is that it blasts your food with
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: marcro wave radiation, right, which, again, radiation, It sounds scary,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: but it's really just light. Yeah, light is an example
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: of radiation. So this is just another kind of electromagnetic radiation.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: And and you might be wondering like, well, okay, why
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: does this specific frequency of radiation tend to heat at
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: your food? Why is that do that? Right? Well, one
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: thing you'll notice is that when you open up a
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: microwave oven after you've cooked your food, right, that the
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: air inside the microwave oven is not hot. So a
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: lot of people think that the way a microwave works
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: is that the microwave radiation heats up just the water
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: inside the food. Yeah, I've heard, I've heard of that. Yeah,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: Like somehow there's something like it only heats up the
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: water molecules, or preferentially the water molecules in your food.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: That's kind of why. I like, if you stick a
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: plastic plate, it's not going to heat up as much
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: as if you put you know, a hot dog, mhmm.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: And there is some truth to that, right, A microwave
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: will heat up some kinds of food more than other
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: kinds of food. But the reason that some people give
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: is that they think that microwave has like a resonant
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: frequency with the water. Remember, microscopically, water is made out
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: of molecules, and those molecules can do things like spin
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: and vibrate, and like all atomic stuff, it's quantum mechanical,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: which means it can only accept um radiation. It's certain frequencies.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Like we talked about how atoms can absorb wavelength certain
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: wavelengths of light and not other wavelengths of light. So
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: some people, I think, imagine that this is what's happening
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: instaide your microwave. That water can absorb frequency at this
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: wavelength um and the air and the other stuff can't. Right,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: So that's the common misconcept. And when you say resonant
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: frequency mean like kind of like a water the idea
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: that water has kind of an internal bouncing nous to it, right,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: like an internal m M like frequency. It likes to
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: bounce around like a guitar string. Yes, exactly, And it's
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: true of every atom, right, they do have special frequencies
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: at which they like to vibrate. And it depends on
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: the atom and how it's built and how the electrons
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: are organized and all that stuff, and so they do
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: have special resident frequencies that they do like to absorb radiation.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: But that's not what's happening here. That's not the way
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: that the microwave work. It's not it's not definitely not No,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: it's a totally different but really fascinating mechanism. You just
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: nuke my brain here, I just reard my start my
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: illusion of understanding here. Okay, so it's not making a
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: residence with the water, So how is it? But it is?
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: It is sort of related to water, right, Like, there's
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: something about water molecules that microwaves are kind of specially
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: tuned to a heat up. Yeah, and it's a different process.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: It's called dielectric heating. Essentially. It's because water molecules they
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: have the same number of positive and negative charges, but
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: they're not exactly balanced in the same place, right, which
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: means that one part of the water molecule is a
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: little more positive and another part is a little more negative.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: So overall there's a little bit of a separation of
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: the charges. So what happens when electroc one side of
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: water is more optimistic dealing, what's more pessimistic. That's right,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: You got the upside and the downside. Um somewhat some
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: water molecules are like the glasses have full of us.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: They have just like this glasses have empty of us.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: It's a big But what happens when electromagnetic waves by,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Remember electromagnetic waves interact with things that have charge, right,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: negative and positive charge, and so what they do is
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: that one part of the molecule gets pushed one way
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: and the other part that has the other charge gets
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: pushed the other way. You're saying, like a water molecule
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: is kind of like a little magnet where one end
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: is sort of negative and the other side is positive.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: So it's not like perfectly even, yeah, it's not. It's
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: kind of like a magnet in that there are north
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: and south, right, But in this case we're talking about
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: electric charges and they're positive and negative, and the waves
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: come by and they tweak it, and they tweak it
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: differently because the charge is different on one side than
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: the other. Right, it's overall neutral, but you've separated the
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: charges a little bit so that you have a positive
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: and negative and so the wave gives the two sides
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: a different kick right in different directions, and that spins it.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: But the thing about a wave is that it's a
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: wave which means it goes up and then it goes down.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: So now the other part of the wave comes by
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: and it spins it the other direction. And so essentially
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: what happens when these waves come by a water molecule
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: is they spin them back and then forth, and then
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: back and then forth, and so they're sort of like
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: they're spinning all the little molecules. All the little water
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: molecules in your food gets spun back and forth by
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: this microwave. So it's not like an internal vibration. It's
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: more like a it's but it is sort of a resonance,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: right like in how it spins, like it likes to
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: spin at that frequency or special resonance. It's just it's
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: the fact that it has this. Anything in your food
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: that has an electric dipole will get spun this way.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: It just so happens that water is pretty good at
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: getting spun that way because the arrangement of the atoms
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: inside the water molecule gives it a larger electric dipole
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: than things like plastic, which we're not supposed to eat,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: which you're not supposed to eat. And so what happens
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: you heat up all the water molecules and they they
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: got a lot of energy now, right, and then they
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: spread the energy to the stuff around it. So you're
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: cooking a turkey, right, you heat up with the water molecules,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: and then the heat spreads out right from the water
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: molecules to the other stuff that didn't get sort of
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: mixed up or spun around. I'm sort of thinking about it,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: like to cook something with a microwave. You take like
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: a billion tiny little spoons and you stir up each
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: of the little water molecules. You're like shaking. You're shaking
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: each molecule. Yeah, exactly, you're shaking their booties and they're dancing,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: and they spread their energy out to other stuff. And
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: so that's how the non the stuff that in your
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: food that doesn't have an electric dipole also gets heated up.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: So it is sort of there is something about water,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: but it's not doesn't have to do with this sort
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: of internal resonance. It's just really just it's just it
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: just has this kind of a magnet like structure. Yeah, exactly,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: it's the electric dipole structure. And the fascinating thing is
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: that for this to work, the water molecules have to
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: be able to wiggle right, the keys, you're like turning
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: it and turning it back and turning and turning it back.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: So this is something I didn't understand very well, but
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: that frozen water is harder to heat up in the
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: microwave the liquid water because the molecules can't wiggle as
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: much because they're trapped in this ice crystal. It's frozen too, right,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: So it's just naturally harder to heat up because it's
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: a pretty cold. That's true. It takes longer to heat
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: up to a certain temperature. But it absorbs microwaves less
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: efficiently when it's frozen than when it's liquid. So it's
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: like it takes in the energy, but because they can't move,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: that energy doesn't get absorb Yeah, exactly. They you know,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: the wave comes by and it tries to wiggle that
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: little water molecule because it has that electric dipole, but
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: it just doesn't get wiggled as much, and so it
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: doesn't absorb as much energy. And then you know, later
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: when it's freer because it's you melted it a little bit,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: then you can get mixed up even better. Wow. Imagine
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: you know, imagine trying to take a frozen block of
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: water and mixing it up until it melts, right, that's
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: not going to be very efficient. But you could put
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: a spoon into a bowl of water and mix it
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: around until it got really hot. That's more efficient. And
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: I guess it's convenient because most of the things we
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: eat have water in it, right, that's right, And that's
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: a convenient overlap between our diet and the physics. Another
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: misconception that people have is I think that people think
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: that microwaves cook their food from the inside out, or
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: that it cooks it totally evenly, right, that it doesn't
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: really matter where it is because it's this mysterios quantum
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: mechanical thing that's happening. So you're saying it doesn't heat
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: up from the inside. No, it doesn't, actually, because these
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: microwaves penetrate the food, but they only penetrate a few centimeters.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: They can't get all the way in. Their energy gets
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: absorbed before they get really deep into the food, and
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: so the stuff that's cooking the inside of your turkey
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: in a microwave is still the outside of the turkey. Right.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: All you can do is heat the outside and then
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: the inside gets heated by the next layer. And a
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: lot of people have microwaves with like a defrost setting
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: on it. You know, you press the button. It doesn't automatically.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: What it actually does often is that it runs for
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: a little while and then it just turns off. It
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: looks like it's doing something, but it turns off the
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: microwaves and it just sort of lets the heat flow
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: around for a little bit. Oh, I see, So it
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: doesn't cook. The outside doesn't cook, it's just you know,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: heats it up in berths. Yeah, exactly. And different parts
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: of your food will get hot differently, and and the
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: reason is, of course, you know, different parts of different
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: amounts of water. But also it's really difficult to get
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: an even um dose of radiation, right. It's generating this
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: this radiation using a little cavity called a magnetron, and
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: and it's really hard to get like an exactly even
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: density of microwave radiation inside your microwave. And so you
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: have hot spots and cold spots. Yeah. Well I always
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: thought that the reason that the inside get hotter than
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: the outsides was because you know, I imagine my food
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: is getting bombarded by microwaves from all directions, and it's
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: the center of my food that's getting hit by all
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: directions more than any other part, you know what I mean,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Like it's surrounded, so all the all the microwaves sort
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: of concentrate in the middle. Isn't that the reason why
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: maybe the center would heat up more? Well, that would
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: be true if the microwaves are sort of aimed at
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: the center from some source on the outside. But that's
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: that's not how they're generated. This one source, this magnetron um,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: which is a pretty cool name. It generates all the
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: radiation and this little wave god that just sort of
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: dumps it out into your microwave. And more expensive fancier
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: ones have more complicated or double magnetrons to try to
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: make it even. But the best thing you can do
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: to get even cooking of your food is to put
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: it to make it spin, so it sort of rotates
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: your food through the hot spots and the cold spots.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: But you shouldn't just put it in the center. R
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: If you just put it right in the center of
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: your turntable, then all your food is doing is spinning around.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: It's not actually moving through the hot in the cold spots.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get into how microwaves actually make the microwaves.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break, all right. And
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: also let's get into how a microwave makes microwaves. And
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: you're saying that it uses a couple of transformers toys.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: This alien came to Earth and transformed from a killer
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: robot into a kitchen appliance, and its name was magnetron.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: His name was magnetron. Uh no. And this is why
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: microwaves were discovered by physicists. There's a guy, Percy Spencer,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: and he was playing with magnetrons because he was interested
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: in using microwaves for like navigation and for radar. I
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: think it was probably funded by like the U. S.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Navy or the Air Force or something for like communications,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: like to transmit stuff. Yeah, to either transmit stuff or
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: just detect, like you know, where are the rocks and
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: where's the coastline and this kind of stuff, you know,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: useful radar stuff where are the enemy ships and all
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: that stuff. And he had built this magnetron, and a
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: magnetron is just something that generates microwave radiation. How does
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: a magnetron make microwaves? How do you make microwaves in general? Well,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: the way to make radiation is, you know, you find
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: something in nature which normally produces that radiation, you know,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: because it has a residant frequency, it likes to wiggle
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: in exactly the right way to make that radiation. You
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: can do that, or you can build a cavity that
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: makes it so that electrons have exactly that resonant frequency,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: like you build a little metal box and so that
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: when electrons go in there, they like to shake around
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: add exactly the frequency you want to generate. And that's
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: essentially what a magnetron is, yeah, exactly. It's a lot
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: like a musical instrument, you know, and a musical instrument,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: the shape and the size of the cavity determines exactly
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: the acoustic waves that you can generate from it. Right,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: you can shorten the cavity or lengthen the cavity by
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: putting your fingers on the keys exactly. So a magnetron
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: is just a cavity where you shoot electrons. You have
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: magnetic and you have magnetic fields in there in order
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: to generate exactly the right kind of frequency. And you
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: can generate different frequencies by having a different sized cavity.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: So you shoot the electrons in and they all sort
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: of sync up and then outcomes this kind of synchronized
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: right of light, right, yeah, of of radiation. And for
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: those of you know any quantum mechanics, you know that
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: when you create a confined space like an infinite well,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: for those of you have taken physics, that's when you
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: get quantum mechanical effects that you get special residue frequencies
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: energy levels for example. So the same way you have
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: energy levels around an atom, you can have energy levels
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: inside a cavity. And so you get electrons in there
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: and they like to wiggle at this energy level and
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: then they jump down an energy level and give off
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: that radiation, which is then at the frequency that you want.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: So the microwave in my kitchen has one of these
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: magnetrons like a little too. Yeah, exactly, everybody who has
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: a microwave has a little radiation creating device in their microwave.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: And um, but don't worry, right, that sounds crazy like
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: what I'm exposing myself to radiation? You know, you're exposing
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: your coffee to radiation. But also the microwave has metal
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: box around it. And the cool thing about electromagnetic radiation
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: is that it's basically blocked by almost any conductor. So
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: you have a wall of metal, or even just like
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: a grate of metal something we call a Faraday cage.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: It will and all out almost any radiation. So the
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: microwave radiation inside your microwave is basically trapped there by
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: the metal that goes all the way around the box.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: Because because I think I always assumed that my microwave
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: has like several microwave guns amy at the middle. But
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: you're saying there's only one tube here, like genera spewing out.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: He's a light waves man. You made a funny mental
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: image there with microwave gun imagining shooting these things at
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: each other. Not a good idea. Most of them have
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: a single one. Yes, some of them have double ones,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: or you know, more expensive elaborate ones might have multiple magnetrons,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: but you only really need one and it then you
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: just need to guide the radiation using you know, any
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: sort of metal tube. Radiation will propagate down that tube
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: and into your cooking area. That's pretty cool. So then
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: how did they how did he discover the microwave? He
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: built this magnetron to try to generate microwaves, you know,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: for these other physics studies, and I guess he was hungry.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: He was a guy could like the snack and need
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: a chocolate bar in his pocket, and he noticed that
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: he turn the thing on, literally, the chocolate bar would
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: melt and like like a couple of centimeters from his
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: private parts, exactly exactly. I'm thinking, Okay, you're cooking the
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: chocolate bar. You're also cooking the physicist, you know, chocolate
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: covered physicist. Here is what we're preparing. Um. But yeah,
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: that's what he noticed it, and he reported to his employer.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: He's like, hey, look turns out, you know, my whole
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: radar project didn't work, but I invented a new kind
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: of oven for you. Um, we can't spin in the Russians,
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: but hey, we can all have warmer meals. I always
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: wonder how executives feel that way. You know, they give
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: you money because they're looking for a certain contract, and
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: you come back with like teflon or microwaves, right, all
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: these things you're discovered by accident um in research environments. Yeah,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: the pivot, And I wonder what what like amazing inventions
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: were thrown away by small minded executives are like, that's
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: not what we asked you to develop. Put it on
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: the shelf and go back and work on that. Ray gun.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Make the ray gun work. And for those of you
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: who are scared of radiation whatever, don't worry. These things
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: are really safe. They surround your microwave with plenty of metals.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: There really is no leakage um, and it's really it's
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: even pretty safe to like put your face up against
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: the microwave. They used to test microwaves really carefully to
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: make sure that none of this radiation leaked out to like,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: you know, cook your brain. But for so many years
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: they were so safe they couldn't measure anything that these
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: days they don't even bother anymore. And it's really you're
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: just hitting it with the light, you know. It's not
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: like you're hitting it with particles that then make the
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: food radioactive. Right, that's not what's happening. Oh no, no, no,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: It certainly does not make your coffee radioactive, Although that
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: does sound like an awesome superhero creation story. Microwave man
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: he drank radioactive coffee and gained that coffee's proportional strength.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Just heats up the food, right, It doesn't make it um,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: It doesn't give it the ability to admit radiation. No,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: just heats of the food. But you know, if you
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: were inside a microwave, it would heat up you also, right,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: you would literally get cooked. So there are dangerous but
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: only inside the microwave. Outside is not dangerous at all. Cool.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: So that's that's how microwaves work. I feel like like, um,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: I've been irradiated with knowledge today. That's right. A small
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: amount of knowledge leads to a lot of inside. So
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: the next time you're turning on your microwave, remember you're
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: blasting it with radiation. That's basically just taking a little
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: spoon into all the molecules in there that have a
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: little dielectric field and spinning them around to heat up
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: everything else. So there is physics that's making your food taste.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: And as a public service, just remember contents might be
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: hotter than expected. That's right. And you know, some people
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: like microwaves. Some people don't like microwaves. You know. One
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: of the limitations is that you know, did get that
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: crispy browniness, But you can just you know, put it
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: in your toaster of it afterwards if you really want
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: that crunchiness. Yeah, that's that. That's my strategy. Heat up
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: the insides and then you toast the outside. On our
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: next podcast, how do toasters work? How to eat dinner
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: at RG Sounds, how to fix Daniel's microwave of it? Yeah, please,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: I'd love to hear that podcast for less than ten dollars. Alright, everyone,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: we hope you enjoyed that. See you next time. If
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: you still have a question after listening to all these explanations,
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: please drop us a line. We'd love to hear from you.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: You can find us at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge That's one word, or email us at
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Feedback at Daniel and Jorge dot com. Thanks for listening,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast from
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.