If I ask how a microwave oven works, will anyone give me an answer I can understand?

Question

Before telling me how a microwave works, can you tell me what a wave is? FM and AM work on frequencies I guess. What's a frequency? A quark is the smallest known thing to man. What's a quark? Can anyone really explain things to where they make sense on a physical, "I can understand that" kind of level, or do we have to keep going on about things that we've read, and not really understood?

Answer 1

It cooks food by passing electromagnetic wave through food. Food is heated from the absorption of energy by the moisture (water) in the food.

Wave: It is a back and forth movement

Electromagnetic waves: It consists of waves of energy from electric and magnetic fields generated due to the acceleration of electrical charges

Frequency: It is the number of occurrence of something in unit time.

Quark: It is very complicated to explain here, except they are hypothetical particles.

Answer 2

why not focusing in how a solar oven works?

Answer 3

FM and AM and quarks have nothing to do with microwave ovens. AM andd FM are ways of transmitting a radio signals.  Quarks are subatomic particiels that have nothing to do with AM, FM, or microwave.  You need to ask these question separately.

Microwaves are  generated by a specialized piece of electronic equiment called a MAGNETRON. The magnetron in a microwave oven is a cube about 4 inches on a side.  It is a specialized electronic component like a tube or transistor.  It has a very specialized purpose -- to generate microwaves.

Microwaves are bursts of energy.  When these "hit" certain materials, like water, the energy is tansferred into the material.  Thus, the material becomes hot.  

Only materials that contain water --l ike meat and skin and fruit and pudding and eggs and milk -- are affected by microwaves.  Non-food material like plates and glass and paper and plastic are not affected by microwaves.

Micwowaves do not pass easily through metal, so they are controlled by keeping them in a metal box -- the microwave oven itself.

Microwaves are fairly big (compared to radio waves) so they do not pass through small holes. In the door of the microwave oven is a glass sheet which covers a metal plates with holes punched in it.  You can SEE through the holes, but the microwaves cannot come through.

Microwaves are directional. so when they come out of the magnetron they are "stirred" by a fan so that they cover ALL of the material cooking inside.  But still, that is not good enough, so most microwaves have a turntable motor inside to turn the food as it cooks.  If your microwave oven is really cheap, then it won't have this motor, so you have to remember to cook the food for 1/2 the time period, open ther door then turn the food by hand, then cook it again for the rest of the time.

If you put water or meat into a cup, the cup gets hot because the water gets hot and heats up the cup.  Microwaves do not affect non-food items.

Microwaves CAN cook you, too!  So microwave ovens have a "Safety Switch" built into the door so that the oven will not work unless the door is closed.

Answer 4

that is a lot of lenghty questions... ill just tell about the microwave and frequency.

the electromagnetic spectum is made up of waves that broken into differnt sectons depending on there frequency. waves are a type of radiation and frequency is a measure of how a wave vibrates.  vibration is measured in Hertz. if a wave vibrates 2.4 million times a second, it is saide to be 2.4 megahertzs (that is what a wirless router operates at). each frequency has different charateristics. think of standing in the sun. it emits all types of rdiation. you can see the light so you know what it is. it also emits infrared (you feel it as heat) and Ultraviolet (will give a sunburn).

to know how different frequencies affect differnt substances you need to be familiar with "resonate frequency".  this is a frequency that will "echo" in a object. have you ever noticed that there is one note that your radio plays that is 3 times louder than the rest of the music? that is the resonate frequency of your speaker. when it tries to make this note, the whole speaker vibrates. when this note travels through the speaker and bounces off of the back of it it overlaps with the same note again makeing it twice as loud. this note that is twice as loud echos of the back again and adds to the note to make it three times as loud.

if you took a different speaker with a different resonate frequency and played that note next to the first speaker,  the first speaker will start to vibrate untill it is makeing that note too. and there doesnt even have to be power to the first speaker. that note will affect it so much that it will vibrate untill it makes sound too.

different wave frequency will strongly affect anything that has the same resonat frequency as the wave. the light resonates with your eyes, the UV resonates with your skin untill damage is done. a microwave oven creates waves that resonate with water. when the wave hits the water it vibrates. as it vibrates it hits other molicules makeing them bounce around. heat is a measrement of how much the molucultes of an object vibreate. in some cases they can vibrate untill they break. thatis why is is good to wash something with warm water. it lossens up the gunk.

the way the oven makes microwaves is the same way a florecent bulb makes light. when you fill a light bulb with a gas that resonates with visable light (florene) and electrify it, it creates light. microwaves have a bulb filled with amminia. amonia has a resonate frequency very close to water. when the bulb is electrifed, it creates microwaves that are absorbed by the water. in effect the only thing a microwave oven is doing is taking elactrical energy and making microwaves. the microwaves are absorbed by water and the energy is transfered to the food.

the electromagnetic spectrum is not really seperated of course. the distinction is made by humans, it is not something mother nature built in. not all microwaves affect water, just the ones at waters resonate frequency

Answer 5

basically it bombards the food with a specific wavelength of electromagnetic radiation(microwaves) these microwaves cause the water molecules in the food to boil. that is why microwave ovens work well to heat up cooked foods and soups, but not so well for other things like raw pastries.

Answer 6

Ok, as you have stated in your question, a microwave oven works with waves similar to those used in radio transmission. Let's start by explaining what a wave is. A wave is a term used for something, like ac current, the waves of the ocean, sound or even light, that varies it's magnitude with time. For example, in alternating current, the voltage or the current of the electricity passes from positive voltage to negative voltage through time. In the ocean, you see that waves go up and down. Well, it's the same with the microwave, just that this once has two things, an electric field that goes from positive to negative and a magnetic field that goes from positive to negative as well. Well, the thing is that these waves have a lot of energy that makes the molecules vibrate in order to make them gain more energy and thus make the food hotter. How do the manufacturers make the waves?, they build like a little radio frecuency emmiter that creates the waves, this is called the magnetron. How does it work?  well, in simple terms, it creates electromagnetic beams with the required amount of energy you need. Electromagnetic means the combination of and electric and a magnetic field. How do they do it, i'm not going there because it has to do with electronics and i would be confusing you more. The thing is that this electromagnetic thingy makes the molecules vibrate in order to generate heat. It's like an experiment used in thermodynamics, that when you put a fan into a closed recipient of water and make the fan work, this makes the molecules of water move faster and this makes the water hotter.

hope this helps.