Microwave Ovens Central

Now, this may surprise you, but believe it or not microwave ovens cook food with microwaves. "Yeah, smart guy," you say, "but what are microwaves and how exactly do they cook the food?" Good question. Let's examine that.

What are microwaves?
Microwaves are actually a specific type of radio waves. Yep, the same thing that enables you to listen to music in your car can cook your food. Well, sort of.

Radio waves can have wavelengths between 1mm and 100,000km. Radio waves up to 100,000km are used to communicate with submarines, waves between 1m and 10m include FM radio and television broadcast, and radio waves between 1m and 100mm include Bluetooth, cell phones, and our trusty microwave ovens.

What's so special about those waves?
Microwaves are special because they are absorbed by water, but do not affect most paper, plastics, glasses, or ceramics. Microwaves, do, however bounce off metals, and that is why you should never place metal in your microwave ovens. Because microwaves are absorbed by water but not these other items is also why you should never run a microwave without water or food inside it.

When microwaves reach the water, water molecules become excited and start to move rapidly. When molecules do this they create heat. This heat is what cooks your food in the microwave oven. This is also why you can't bake inside a microwave, because believe it or not a microwave oven's air will more or less not heat up. This is why when you reach into a microwave oven following cooking, the only heat you need to worry about is from the food.
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