Microwaves and Urban Myths

SEE!!! Its not just my generic idiots that have this tales. Just like all myths they have a grain of truth in them somewhere...so where its it?

Microwaves have a built in Faraday cage. That's why the window at the front always has mesh on them.

If you damage the mesh in the screen, or somehow rig the microwave to run with the door open, you will be exposed to the microwaves which aren't very good for you. IIRC it's the wrong type of radiation to cause cancer, but it will still cook you, which obviously isn't going to be pleasant.
 
Isn't there some 'trick' you can do with an ant or a cockroach in a Microwave, they can apparently sense the microwaves and thus avoid them, they run what looks like a little dance in there whilst the Microwave is on full and suffer absolutely no harm whatsoever.
 
If you can get irradiated by standing next to a running microwave, imagine how much radiation the food you're cooking gets! :eek:

Don't eat microwaved food people, it's full of radiation!!!
 
You should not stand and look in to a microwave due to this problem. The door usually has that black stuff on it but that does not help much. You can stand near it but i wouldn't put my face next to the window for whole 5 or 10 mins.

stick a slice of bacon on the outside of the door the next time you cook something.

i bet nothing happens
 
No there is not any radiation leakage.

Also when the door is opened, you will notice that the cooking stops.


Don't believe me? Look under your microwave, the surface will distinctly uncooked despite supposed years of radiation leakage.
 
No there is not any radiation leakage.

Also when the door is opened, you will notice that the cooking stops.


Don't believe me? Look under your microwave, the surface will distinctly uncooked despite supposed years of radiation leakage.

yea its not like theres a waiting time after the microwave has turned off before it pings and allows you to open the door
 
Why do you have dinner at work? Do you work night shifts?

Odd question :) I have my dinner at work for a number of reasons:

1) I work in the city centre so spending money on food every day gets expensive
2) Trying to loose some weight so taking cold soup and heating it up means I can regulate the calorie intake I have for lunch
3) I buy off the whoopsy aisles and freeze it - £3.50 worth of soup for 65p which will last me 2 lunches? Yes please :D
 
Microwave's only cook stuff as far as I'm aware because they create a standing wave inside the machine that resonates. Anything that leaks out just dissipates harmlessly.

The resonance is with respect to water molecules which is why it heats up food. Your body is mostly made up of water so yes it would effect you if it leaked out.

As to the person talking about mobile phones, a mobile was under ETSI standards allowed to radiate 1 watt of power in a 360 degree dome so your head would probably absorb roughly half of that based on a dipole radiation pattern. A microwave has up to 800 watts of power so if your door was not adequetly sealing then you could have quite a lot of power leaking out.
 
Dinner = midday meal.

You know those ladies at school who supervised whilst you were eating? They were called dinner ladies for a reason.


<can of worms>

Oh god yeah - just realised my Northern-isum there...

Okay so I am in Manchester = The North West...I have Breakfast, Dinner and Tea in that order :D
 
Next they'll be telling you to believe in a 2000-year old dead man so that you won't suffer damnation in some sort of hellish afterlife.
 
Some do leak but the amount they leak is so small, that even standing next to it, it's not going to do you any harm. All the microwaves can do is heat up your tissue, but the level of the leak is so small that it is perfectly safe.

If you want to check to make sure it's sealed properly, you can put a netbook inside that is connected to a wifi network and close the door and see if the netbook stays connected. If it does, then you have a problem.

Can microwaves leak radiation?

Check a microwave for leaks
 
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