Microwaves and Urban Myths

Redrum said:
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.
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Assuming that it's a 2.4 GHz network. Microwave ovens have a fairly narrow bandwidth so other frequencies will be able to get in and out.
 
There will be some leakage, but it should be below statutory levels even if you pressed your skin to the glass.

Any significant leakage would not cook your insides, it would cook your outsides. This is only likely to occur if you do something stupid. If you try to open the door, the interlock should cut out before there is any real reduction in the attenuation provided by the enclosure. It should never be possible to get more than the permitted level unless you are inside the oven ("doing something stupid" exception still applies).

You will get more radiation sitting with a wifi laptop on top of your reproductive organs. At microwave frequencies, the radiation is non-ionising so all you can do is cook things, not cause cancer etc.
 
This just goes to show that being educated in a certain area does not mean you can't still get stuff very wrong.

I had an arguement the other day with a guy about whether Felix Baumgartner created a sonic boom during his jump. For ages he was trying to explain the most basic of things to me and then when I continued to disagree he came out with my favourite line - "As someone with a physics diploma I'm telling you..." - then repeating his point. Amazing.
 
I am old enougth to remember when these microwave ovens first became available to the masses. The myths being chucked around scared the hell out of me at first lol

Mum would get out some new fangled food item that could be microwaved, all the "Ooohhh" and "Aaaaas" at this weird wonder and then she would turn it on. I just had this stupid idea it was like a nuclear reactor waiting to go off and never fully trusted what was cooked in it. Nowadays you just do not think twice when using one :rolleyes:
 
Wasn't the myth about looking in at the cooking food, something regarding eyeball tissue being thinner than skin tissue that could cause eye cancer.

Don't quote me on that.
 
IrishChr1s said:
Wasn't the myth about looking in at the cooking food, something regarding eyeball tissue being thinner than skin tissue that could cause eye cancer.

Don't quote me on that.
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It's a corruption of something that is true. The eyeball doesn't have the same cooling mechanism as the rest of the head so if your head was exposed to enough dielectric heating from a microwave device, your eyes could overheat and this would cause cataracts by denaturing proteins in the lens. However, you're not going to do this by looking through the glass of a microwave oven.
 
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