March 1, 2010 • 31 mins
Microwave ovens are ubiquitous kitchen appliances with surprising origins. Join Jonathan and Chris as they discuss the microwave oven (and stuff you shouldn't put in it) in this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you get in touch with technologies? With
tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Poulette, and
I am the tech editor here at how stuff works
(00:22):
dot Com. And sitting across from me, as he always
does on these occasions, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. And
we're coming to you alive, even though a blizzard of
epic proportions is going on directly outside the studio of
how stuff Works dot com, or at least it's snowing,
and in Atlanta, that's like the snow apocalypse. Yeah, so
(00:43):
um as, as the world breaks down outside and we
see the angry mobs set fire two cars and raided
all the grocery stores for all the milk and bread
that they have, eggs and eggs and toilet paper, we
will we will soldier on and bring you another fresh, hot,
tasty episode of tech Stuff. And in this case, the
(01:04):
episode comes to a courtesy of a little listener mail.
This listener mail comes from Timas and I hope I'm
saying that correctly. It could also be Timas or some
other pronunciation of which I'm unfamiliar, and it goes like this. Hi,
I'm Timas from Taiwan. I'm in eighth grade. I just
started listening to your podcast and I already love it.
(01:25):
I have a quick question for you. How do microwaves work?
Please answer it if you have time, preferably in a podcast. Thanks.
Keep up the awesome work. Ps. Please reply so I
can make sure I have the right email address. Well,
I did reply, so he knows he has alright email address. Uh,
we are going to talk about microwave ovens. We're assuming
that's what he means by microwaves, because microwaves themselves are
(01:47):
a form of electro magnetic radiation. Yes, they are a
particular kind that their wavelengths can measure from anywhere from
a few centimeters to about a foot long. Uh, that's
huge for radio waves. Visible light is actually in the
pnenometer scale four seven hundreds or nanometers. I did it
(02:12):
the way you like, specifically, so we wouldn't have to
do that, Yeah, which is which is why? Yes? Where Yeah?
So either either either either? Yeah? This is ah. This
is all thanks to a guy named Percy Spencer. Yes,
back in nine, which, Uh, it's kind of a funny story.
(02:35):
I actually saw an episode of I can't even remember
what it was. It's one of those those history of
mechanics shows, probably something, but anyway, it was talking about
different inventions, and the way he discovered microwaves could cook
was very very interesting. I mean, he was already working
with microwaves, but for radar purposes, because he was working
(02:57):
his candy ball. He didn't melt this candy bar. He
was working with a radar system, yes, which uses a
device called a magnetron. Yes. He was working on it
for the Raytheon Corporation, Yes, and still is involved with
a lot of defense stuff. Yes, exactly. Yeah. So during
his his experiments, I mean, the magnetrons have been in
use for for several years up to that point, he
(03:20):
just noticed that when he took it out of its
uh of its casing and it was working on it
with some other experiments. He knows one day that the
candy bar he had in his pocket had mysteriously melted,
and he thought, I wonder if this has anything to
do with this magnetron do hickey, Except he probably thought
of it in much more scientific terms. He then decided
(03:40):
to try and experiment. He placed some kernels of unpopped
popcorn next to it. He read that sucker up by
pulling the little chain, getting that diesel engine going. Um.
Actually that's not exactly how it worked. But he turned
it on and watched as the unpopped popcorn became popped
popcorn and said ah ha. And then of course he
(04:01):
did the next logical step. He put an egg next
to it and watched it explode. It's true, it's totally
I know it was. I know, it's totally true. That's
the funny thing is it's just amazing that he didn't
immediately like put a grape next to it, and then
maybe an incandescent BOWLB But I mean, all the things
that you see on YouTube of people putting stupid stuff
in the microwave, it's amazing he was the one that
(04:22):
was discovering that it was stupid. Perhaps perhaps he was
doing it and we just haven't don't have the record
of it. And then and then he did a compact disc.
He invented the compact disk. So no, he did not
invent the compact disc. No, no, no, But it is
kind of funny because you figure if the microwave. The
microwave emissions from the Magnatron were cooking the candy bar
(04:43):
and the popcorn and the egg. Probably wasn't doing him
very much good. But as I used to joke about that,
but as it turned out, he lived a very long life,
so well, apparently I didn't do him too much. He
would you would feel the effects pretty quickly, because I mean,
it does heat up tissue very It's it's not like
it just magically goes from from uncooked to cooked. But
(05:05):
we'll get into that. We'll talk about the actual sequence
that happens when microwaves encounter, um, anything that happens to
have some sort of moisture in it. Well, um Percy Spencer.
His discovery led Raytheon to release the world's first microwaveve
and in which incredibly compact. Right. Oh yeah, it was
the size of a refrigerator five and a half feet tall.
(05:28):
So yeah, the first microwave was just a little shorter
than my wife. But that sucker was a lot more
powerful than the ones that they have out now because
that it was it was essentially an industrial microwave machine.
It was you know, very very early on and very
very expensive cook an entire deer in just five seconds. Wow. Um, anyway,
(05:52):
they were they ran between two thousand and three thousand
dollars yea, and the very first one cost about five grand.
They're very very the very first one five thousand dollars,
which in ninety seven was about the same price as
you could get for Poland you are just on a
roll today anyway, it's snowing outside. It's a snow day,
(06:14):
right anyhow. Um, so you know, this was a little
bit out of the price range of the average American household, right,
So Raythoon licensed the technology to t Happen. Uh, and
in nineteen fifty five, T Happen introduced the first domestic
microwave oven, which was still out of the price range
of the average uh, you know household, um, but you know,
(06:36):
as considerably cheaper than those giant industrial models. Um. And
then uh, Raytheon inquired Amana, so there you go to
the Amanda radar range. The two names came together and uh,
you know it's in sixty seven, Raytheon did their first
domestic hundred volt microwave oven, which was under five and
(06:58):
of course now they're you know, approximately seven dollars if
you really wanted to. You could go out buy one
ruin it by putting one of the things you're not
supposed to put in it, and then watch go out
and buy another one, and you're really only out likes.
So not that you should put anything uh weird in
(07:18):
your microwave. You shouldn't. You really shouldn't. Don't do it.
You could end up burning down the apartment. Besides, it's
more fun to watch it on YouTube because then you
let somebody else ruin their microwave and you get to
keep yours right, and you also get to hear all
the hilarious comments that go on in the background. Oh
my god, and wow and this is stupid. Yeah, and
(07:40):
then you're thinking, and you videotaped it, and not only that,
but then went to the next step of uploading it
to the internet to share it with everyone. So microwaves cook.
Oh yeah, let's get what they do using a They
have a hurts or two point five gigga hurts h frequency. Yes,
these are radio waves, remember so, um, let's that's specifically
(08:01):
the kind of electromagnetic radiation we're talking about in the
radio wave spectrum. And uh, they the thing waves of
this this frequency can be absorbed by water and fat
and sugar and some other stuff. Yeah, and uh, when
they do get absorbed by these materials, those materials begin
to generate a lot of atomic motion, which we also
(08:24):
can refer to as heat. So there you go. The
material absorbs these these waves, which then makes the material
heat up and that can cook a um, well, whatever
it is you put in there that happens to have water, bad,
sugar or whatever in it. But it also means that
certain other kinds of materials do not absorb these microwaves
(08:49):
as metal. Metal metal actually reflects it, which is which
is why you don't stick a fork or some aluminum
foil in your microwave oven, you know. But you know what, uh,
here's here's the thing is that if you do put
metal in your microwave, like regular metal, not not like
a foil, but something that has got more substance to it,
so like a pot or whatever or it can, it's
(09:11):
not necessarily gonna spark um Ith. The sparking comes from
things that if you were to have it too close
to one of the walls of the microwave, where the
differential between the metal that's in the whatever it is
that you put in there and the metal of the
wall that could possibly create a plasma that would end
up sparking. But in most cases, what's really gonna happen
(09:33):
is the metal is going to just reflect the microwaves
off of whatever it is you're trying to nuke, and
then you're not gonna have a hot dish. It's the
food itself is not gonna get is not gonna absorb
enough microwaves to heat up properly because the metal has
reflected it all. And you know, just to to let
you guys know, I mean, yeah, you're not supposed to
(09:54):
put metal in the microwave, but it's because it inhibits
the food from heating up rather than anything else. It's
just like the the screen that's on your microwave door.
You know, you look through a microwave and you see
that little grid. It's a mesh. It's that's made out
of metal. It's there. It's there to reflect microwaves back
into the oven so that they don't go shooting out
(10:17):
and nuking everything in your house. Yes, actually that's uh,
the mesh is actually uh. I'm glad you mentioned that
because I was interested in the mash because I had
heard some people talking about why it was mesh and
why it was there. You know, it's very important to
have that mesh on there. Um. But you may wonder
why it has little holes in it. Well, actually I
(10:38):
um um. Funnily enough, I was at how Everything Works
dot org, which being not really a competitor of ours
actually sort of. Uh. You may know Lou Bloomfield who
uh used to be on the Discovery Show. Um some
assembly required. Um. He he wrote a piece. He actually
answered several questions about microwaves and um. One of those
(11:02):
is why the holes are there in the mash. Now, um,
the holes you need the metal reflective surface on the
door to keep the microwaves inside the oven and from
you know, coming out of there and nuking your head.
Should you be checking on the condition of your dinner? Um? Well,
you know, and somebody's gonna bring up the fact that
we're using the word nuke when it's not actually nuclear,
(11:22):
but that it's it's colloquial. We're using nuke in the
colloquial to microwaves something. Yes, but you need that mesh
there for one to do that. But you also have
to see the condition of your food or whatever. It
is that you put in their coffee popcorn. Um, and uh,
the holes are in there and you would think, well,
maybe those are gonna let the microwaves out well as uh,
(11:44):
as Luke Bloomfield explains, the microwaves are actually at a
have a larger wavelength than the holes in the mash,
so you can see in, but they can't come back out,
which is really cool that it's and they're actually they can, uh,
the wavelengths being you know, few centimeters to even feet
in size. That's um, that's pretty cool. It's a lot
like the prison I drive by all the time. You
(12:06):
can see in, but they can't get out. Okay, So anyway,
moving on to talking more about how these microwaves heat
up material and cook them because microwaves are absorbed by
this whatever material you've put into the microwave itself. Um,
not necessarily because the foods that you put in there
(12:27):
to be to have them absorbed, right, Yes, yes, that's
what I mean. Specifically, I'm not talking about the plates
or whatever, because some of those don't. Yes, okay, So
the stuff you put in the microwave to actually heat up,
Mr Pellette, the stuff you nuke in the microwave. Okay,
anything that anything that has these materials that do absorb microwaves.
(12:47):
They do so uniformly right, well, assuming that there's not
too thick. If if the material is too thick, like
if you were to put an entire chicken breast, for example,
in there, and the chicken breast was a particularly meat
each can breast, that might not be the best idea
because you might not the microwaves might not be able
to penetrate deeply enough to really heat up the chicken
(13:10):
breast in a uniform way, and then you could end
up with some raw chicken in the middle, and that's
not good. Raw chicken in the middle, And depending on
how long you cook it, it could be so you know,
crunchy on the outside that you couldn't even eat it. Yeah,
it'll be in it rubberized. So a normal oven cooks
through uh you know the whole convection conduction thing. Yes,
it's where you're conducting heat from one area to another.
(13:33):
So you're cooking from the outside in. Heat is being
applied to the outside of whatever the food is. That
heat slowly moves inside and then eventually you have a
cooked meal. And usually that means the outside is crispier
or as as more well done if you prefer, then
the middle is has has had heat applied to it
(13:55):
for a longer time and uh and in a more
direct way. Microwaves accord s don't do this. The material
absorbs the microwaves, and microwaves are being bounced all around
the the oven so that it's hitting. Ideally, it's hitting
the food from pretty much every direction possible at that point,
but of course it doesn't. Each microwave is a little
bit different and they changes the age, which is why
(14:18):
they have that carousel in the middle to spin the
food to try to make sure that everything gets heated.
People who use older microwaves often have to stop halfway
through and rotate the food and then started again because
just because the way the microwaves are are are the
microwave ovens are designed, microwaves do tend to hit one
side more frequently than another. I mean, it's because they
(14:40):
go through this little microwave trough and then they come
into the oven itself. They're not completely randomized, so if
you aren't, if you don't have a carousel in your microwave,
you may have to turn the food once or twice
in order to have it heat evenly. Um and um. Yes,
I was going to say the the microwaves are hitting
(15:00):
the food and they're heating it up, but the air
inside the microwave oven is staying at relatively the same
temperature because the air is not absorbing the microwaves. Um.
And this is another something interesting I found by reading
our article about microwave and something site um that uh.
I always wondered about those little silvery sleeves that you
(15:21):
get with certain kinds of food like hot pockets. Yes,
not that we're not we're not sponsored by them or anything.
It's not. That's a good example. Without them, I would
have died in college. But yes, things that you want
crispy on the outside, because things when I was talking
about the chicken breast earlier, when I said crispy, it's
not We're not talking like the crust on a slice
(15:42):
of bread. We're talking rubbery and hard and black in
some cases from carbonization. Um. Now this, if you want
something like that, like something with a uh that has
been fried to be sort of crispy on the outside,
you're gonna have to heat up the outside more than
you heat up the the middle and do that. They
use this foil. That foil is designed to absorb those microwaves,
(16:08):
and it heats up faster than the rest of the food,
which heats at the outside of the food in addition
to cooking the rest of it, so it makes the
outside crispy. It's kind of it's kind of simulating what
would happen if you put it in a regular oven. Yes,
because it's not an approximation. I mean it is an approximation.
It's not the real thing. Yeah, exactly, you can only
kind of sort of fake it. Um and uh, let's
(16:31):
let's talk a little bit about what actually is going
on here when you when you switch your microwave on.
So what's going on here? You plug your microwave in. Now,
First of all, microwaves have a switch that um will
only remain shut if you close the door, So the
microwave will not operate while the door is open, because
(16:51):
the circuit is not is not complete until you close
the door. It's very important for the safety of everybody
on the outside of the microwave. People inside the microwave,
you're kind of screwed. So the door closes, that completes
the circuit. No no. I. Uh, you close the door,
(17:12):
You've completed the circuit, and then the electricity from your
from the power outlet comes in through the microwave, and uh,
it goes through first a regular Uh, it goes through
a low voltage UM section of your microwave, which this
is what powers everything from like uh, your timer, the circuitry,
(17:35):
everything that the fan that will turn as the microwave
is going, or the carousel that turns as the microwave
is going, UM, all the low voltage stuff. UH takes that.
That's what hits first. After that, it goes into the
high voltage transformer and this boosts the voltage significantly because
(17:55):
it turns out the magnetron um not the leader of
the Decepticons. As I will discovered, you were just talking
about transformer. This is true, um, but yeah, that's what
confused me. I was like, it goes into a high
voltage transformer and it's called magnetron. Is it a Decepticon? No. Uh.
The high voltage transformer then feeds energy into the magnetron,
(18:16):
which is what converts the electricity into radio waves known
as microwaves. Uh. The microwaves are there's a fan that's
blowing and the reason the fan blows is to kind
of break up the microwaves so that they go in. Uh,
it randomizes it a little bit so that you don't
just have a stream of microwaves hitting a very specific
(18:37):
spot on the in the oven, because otherwise you would
just have one really hot spot and the rest of
it wouldn't be very effective, which would mean you would
have to place food in a very specific point in
the oven um, which kind of you know, defeats the purpose.
So uh, it goes. The microwaves go through essentially a trough. Really,
(18:57):
it's it's a guidance system. They come into the oven,
they get randomized a bit, they bounce around until they
are absorbed by something um or they just fizzle out,
and then then you get your hot, tasty popcorn, which
I can't stand because it gives me migraines. Yeah, I'm sorry,
but stove cooked popcorn is so much better the microwave popcorn.
(19:20):
It just is. Yeah. Oh, and although it is a
quick sack, I agree. I should say that the trough
I'm talking about, it's it's a metal channel. It's actually
called the wave guide. The name just totally jumped out
of my brain. While I was talking about it. But
as I looked on in my notes, I realized, hey,
I actually did write that down wave guide and so yeah,
(19:41):
I'm Steve. Will be your wave guide today. Right on
your left you will see the microwaves. Actually you won't
because it's outside the range of visible light. Yeah, and uh,
if you want to know how magnetron's work, wow, this
gets this gets pretty complicated. Yeah, you know, I didn't
into that in my research. So they are made up
(20:03):
of an anode, a cathode, a filament, and a couple
of magnets and um. The idea here is that you're
generating a flow of electrons that go from the cathode
to the anode. You use the magnets to alter the
path of the electrons so that they spin in a
Instead of going in a straight line, they go in
a curve, and this curve gets tight and they start spinning.
(20:24):
This is what generates the radio frequencies, the microwaves. And um,
it's you know, I've I've read this description three or
four times and then I realized, you know what we
need to do send an email to stuff from the
science lab and have them explain how magnetrons work because
I think it's more science than tech at this point. Um,
(20:47):
it's actually pretty cool. There's some great illustrations on the
web in various places that show you what the anode
and the cathode look like. Um, the anode actually has
chambers in it. Uh. And I read the technical description,
like I said, three or four times, and I'm still
not entirely certain exactly what the mechanics are or you know,
the physics are behind this. But yeah, you uh, you
(21:09):
pump the high voltage through and uh, you generate the
electron flow. The magnets alter the the path of the electrons.
That's what creates the radio frequencies, which will eventually cook
whatever it is, you know, your Rama noodles or whatever
that you're thrown in there. I've thrown out a lot
of brand names. Yeah, you know today, I didn't mean
to do that. Well again, I'm thinking, like I don't.
(21:33):
I don't use microwave ovens as often as I used to.
If I do use microwave oven it's to heat up
something that I cooked in a more conventional method. Um.
Mostly because the foods that tend to come design specifically
for microwaves also don't tend to be very healthy, and
I'm trying to eat healthier now because I want to
last a nice long time to to hunt your every
(21:56):
waking moment. You know, I've seen green friendly websites talk
about using microwave ovens because they use less energy, they
are very efficient, um than conventional ovens, so you know
there is an advantage in that. That is true. Um, However,
I can't stand what they do to bread. Yeah, well
(22:17):
I can eat this for the next two seconds, so
I guess we can talk very quickly about some of
the stuff that you shouldn't put in a microwave. Um.
And honestly, people don't put this stuff in a microwave. Um.
If if it doesn't hurt you, it will probably hurt
your microwave. Yeah, if nothing else, you may end up
damaging your microwave, which is not gonna win you any
points in any household. But damaging yourself is certainly not
(22:39):
good either, so please don't. So, for instance, have you
seen any videos of someone who's cut a grape almost
all the way in half and then microwaved it? Um?
You know no, But I actually read a one of
those questions by Mr Bloomfield. Um. Actually probably Dr Bloomfield.
Um I was talking about blueberries because they were wondering
why they're blueberries were catching on fire. He was saying, well,
(23:01):
actually the blueberries are not technically catching on fire. But
I'm thinking, I'm thinking, what I think I know what's
happening here. So you cut a grape almost in half
until it's just being held together by the skin on
one side. So you cut them long ways, put them on,
say like an upturned coffee mug. You put set the
(23:23):
microwave for you know, fifteen seconds or something, and then
you'll start to see the grape spark and sometimes you'll
see some pretty impressive sparks fly up out of the grape.
Sometimes it might even catch on fire, and you're thinking,
what the heck is happening here? Why are grapes doing this?
The theory here is that the microwaves hit the grape,
which then heat up very the grape. He's very quickly.
(23:46):
There's a lot of moisture in that grape which ends
up gasifying. It turns into a gas exactly. Well, that's
the thing is that first it's a gas, but the
microwaves excite the gas, turning it into a plasma. So
a plasma is an ionized gas. It's a gas in
which free electrons are roaming around and it is uh,
(24:07):
it's it's one of them. It is the most common
form of matter in the universe. The sun is plasma.
So you're you're technically turning a bit of that grape
into plasma. It's it's the evaporation from the grape ends
up being excited by the microwaves. That becomes an ionized
gas and that's what you see when it sparks. Um
(24:28):
and a lot of other materials will do similar things
when you put them into a microwave. That will give
off this um, this gas that can get excited by
the microwaves. So yeah, don't do grapes um, don't put
don't put eggs. Just like an egg in its shell,
don't do that. Don't put that in the microwave. It
(24:49):
will explode the the internal part of the egg will
heat up to the point where the steam generated will
be too great for the egg to maintain structural integrity.
And then you have a massive mess. Bar of soap
ivory soap, but there's another brand name for you. Put
a bar of soap in there, and it ends up
turning into a big foamy mess. But fortunately it's easy
(25:11):
to clean because it's soap. Um actually might end up
cleaning your entire microwave in the process, but I still
don't recommend you to do it because you could end
up burning yourself very badly. Um. Let's see what other
things lightbulbs do. Not put any kind of lightbulb into
a microwave. Yes, the microwaves can heat it up and
make it light up in your microwave and it looks neat,
(25:34):
but they will explode, which, first of all, that's incredibly dangerous.
You're talking about shards of glass flying around. Uh. Second, well,
if you're using a fluorescent light bulb, you've got some
really nasty chemicals in there, like mercury that can be
uh they're very toxic, and you don't want to release
that into your environment. Peppers, you don't want the nuke
(25:54):
peppers if you can help. But you know why, why
not because they give off plasma, but because they will
possibly release some steam that has kept say us in
it and then you've just tear gas yourself. Nice ask
me how I know this? Oh yeah, and you know
our producer of the day, Matt it's also nodding and
(26:17):
owning up to Mr Frederick and I apparently both enjoy
these spicy foods. And we can tell you by the
way nuking dried peppers particularly bad as I discovered. Yeah,
you don't want to do that. If you don't, if
you value things like your eyesight and um and the
(26:39):
love of those around you, because nothing, there's nothing quite
like spraying pepper spray across an entire living area to really, um,
you put a strain on relationships. You know. One other
thing you don't want to do is overheat stuff you like,
like a like a type of water superheating, yes, like
(27:00):
quid And people think this is some kind of a myth.
How how could water explode on you? Well, the thing
is if you make a liquid too hot past the
point at which it's going to boil, and if the
container it's in is so smooth that there are no
nuclayic sites there for the water to actually boil. Yeah,
I mean something generally, a liquid that boils needs something
(27:20):
to boil on, like a pebble or something to introduce
some some kind of irregular surface for it to start
boiling on. If you uh, you know, NUCA cup of
coffee and then decided to put sugar in it, you
may suddenly have boiling coffee. What you've just done is
you have introduced a nuclaic site into a superheated liquid,
(27:41):
and then it's going to boil spontaneously, which looks a
lot like an explosion um and can severely burn you.
It can happen now most of the time. For this
to happen, like I said, you need to have used
some sort of very smooth vessel to hold the liquid
because otherwise it's going to find nuclayic sites find not
like find in a intelligent way. This is it's gonna
(28:02):
latch onto any nuclei, excite and boil within the within
the microwave itself. But if if it's like a very
smooth ceramic mug and then you put some like non
dairy creamer in it or some sugar something, it'll it'll
use as a nucleay e site and just boil immediately.
And sometimes just moving the cup will do it. Yeah,
(28:22):
because then you know the liquid is now moving and
it's it's incredibly dangerous. So yeah, you do need to
be careful with that. A lot of microwaves now come
with settings that are preset for certain things, including things
like reheating a cup of coffee. Um, and this is
stuff that the manufacturer has determined to be within the
safe zone. So even then you should still be careful.
(28:45):
But um yeah, good point. Glad you brought that up.
Thank you. Well, do you have anything else to say
about that? Now? I find myself excited by microwaves too,
so it was it's pretty cool. Oh well, you know,
it ended up being an interesting subject. I'm actually I
originally had a one way to wrap this up, but
I'm gonna change it up. I'm so just like just
(29:07):
warning you, Pullette. Our listeners have no clue what I'm
talking about. But we're gonna end with a little listener mail.
This listener mail comes from Matt from Marietta, Georgia, so
right up the street. Hey, hey, Matt, I hope you've
got enough bread and milk and toilet paper because I
don't know if you know this, but it's snowing outside. Matt,
says Chris and Jonathan, thank you very much for the
(29:28):
informative podcast. I'm a new listener and have been trying
to catch up on your previous episodes. I enjoyed your
November eleven, two thou nine podcasts and was hoping to
get a little more exposure to some of the topics discussed. First,
could you explain a little about plasma generators while not
cold fusion? You're back to the future reference made me
think of trash consuming technology. Also, as of yet, time
(29:50):
travel is not possible, and I'm gonna cut the rest
of Matt's email because we're probably gonna use these for
future episodes. Time travel is also probably something from stuff
in the science lab, but he wanted to know about
plasma generators and UH and trash. I actually wrote an
article about plasma waiste converters a long time ago. It's
one of my first articles while I was writing here
(30:10):
and how stuff works. So um. In general, what you
have is a plasma torch, which is again an ionized gas.
You have a gas that's being UH that goes between
two very powerful electrodes, which generates an electrical current. It
ionizes the gas, and it generates an incredibly hot torch,
a torch that's so hot that it can actually be
hotter than the surface of the sun. You apply this
(30:33):
torch to garbage and it either gasifies the garbage if
it's all carbon based, or it turns it into it
a it turns into slag, so you get too byproducts
style of this. You get a gas and you get UH.
First it's a liquid slag, but if you cool it
it becomes solid um. It's pretty fascinating stuff. I would
(30:54):
recommend reading the article. It goes into a lot more detail,
but you can learn all about how ahaps using plasma torches,
we could even create fuel from our garbage and UH
eventually have something like a mr fusion, although again it's
plasma plasma fication, not not called fusion. So thanks a lot.
If any of you have any questions or suggestions, write us.
(31:17):
Our email address is text uff at how stuff works
dot com. We have articles about microwaves and other nifty
gadgets on the site. To check that out and Chris
and I will talk to you again, possibly when it's
snowing really soon. Plasma for moralness and thousands of other topics.
Is that how stuff works dot com and be sure
(31:38):
to check out the new tech stuff blog now on
the house stuff Works homepage, brought to you by the
reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you get in touch with technologies? With
tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Poulette, and
I am the tech editor here at how stuff works
(00:22):
dot Com. And sitting across from me, as he always
does on these occasions, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. And
we're coming to you alive, even though a blizzard of
epic proportions is going on directly outside the studio of
how stuff Works dot com, or at least it's snowing,
and in Atlanta, that's like the snow apocalypse. Yeah, so
(00:43):
um as, as the world breaks down outside and we
see the angry mobs set fire two cars and raided
all the grocery stores for all the milk and bread
that they have, eggs and eggs and toilet paper, we
will we will soldier on and bring you another fresh, hot,
tasty episode of tech Stuff. And in this case, the
(01:04):
episode comes to a courtesy of a little listener mail.
This listener mail comes from Timas and I hope I'm
saying that correctly. It could also be Timas or some
other pronunciation of which I'm unfamiliar, and it goes like this. Hi,
I'm Timas from Taiwan. I'm in eighth grade. I just
started listening to your podcast and I already love it.
(01:25):
I have a quick question for you. How do microwaves work?
Please answer it if you have time, preferably in a podcast. Thanks.
Keep up the awesome work. Ps. Please reply so I
can make sure I have the right email address. Well,
I did reply, so he knows he has alright email address. Uh,
we are going to talk about microwave ovens. We're assuming
that's what he means by microwaves, because microwaves themselves are
(01:47):
a form of electro magnetic radiation. Yes, they are a
particular kind that their wavelengths can measure from anywhere from
a few centimeters to about a foot long. Uh, that's
huge for radio waves. Visible light is actually in the
pnenometer scale four seven hundreds or nanometers. I did it
(02:12):
the way you like, specifically, so we wouldn't have to
do that, Yeah, which is which is why? Yes? Where Yeah?
So either either either either? Yeah? This is ah. This
is all thanks to a guy named Percy Spencer. Yes,
back in nine, which, Uh, it's kind of a funny story.
(02:35):
I actually saw an episode of I can't even remember
what it was. It's one of those those history of
mechanics shows, probably something, but anyway, it was talking about
different inventions, and the way he discovered microwaves could cook
was very very interesting. I mean, he was already working
with microwaves, but for radar purposes, because he was working
(02:57):
his candy ball. He didn't melt this candy bar. He
was working with a radar system, yes, which uses a
device called a magnetron. Yes. He was working on it
for the Raytheon Corporation, Yes, and still is involved with
a lot of defense stuff. Yes, exactly. Yeah. So during
his his experiments, I mean, the magnetrons have been in
use for for several years up to that point, he
(03:20):
just noticed that when he took it out of its
uh of its casing and it was working on it
with some other experiments. He knows one day that the
candy bar he had in his pocket had mysteriously melted,
and he thought, I wonder if this has anything to
do with this magnetron do hickey, Except he probably thought
of it in much more scientific terms. He then decided
(03:40):
to try and experiment. He placed some kernels of unpopped
popcorn next to it. He read that sucker up by
pulling the little chain, getting that diesel engine going. Um.
Actually that's not exactly how it worked. But he turned
it on and watched as the unpopped popcorn became popped
popcorn and said ah ha. And then of course he
(04:01):
did the next logical step. He put an egg next
to it and watched it explode. It's true, it's totally
I know it was. I know, it's totally true. That's
the funny thing is it's just amazing that he didn't
immediately like put a grape next to it, and then
maybe an incandescent BOWLB But I mean, all the things
that you see on YouTube of people putting stupid stuff
in the microwave, it's amazing he was the one that
(04:22):
was discovering that it was stupid. Perhaps perhaps he was
doing it and we just haven't don't have the record
of it. And then and then he did a compact disc.
He invented the compact disk. So no, he did not
invent the compact disc. No, no, no, But it is
kind of funny because you figure if the microwave. The
microwave emissions from the Magnatron were cooking the candy bar
(04:43):
and the popcorn and the egg. Probably wasn't doing him
very much good. But as I used to joke about that,
but as it turned out, he lived a very long life,
so well, apparently I didn't do him too much. He
would you would feel the effects pretty quickly, because I mean,
it does heat up tissue very It's it's not like
it just magically goes from from uncooked to cooked. But
(05:05):
we'll get into that. We'll talk about the actual sequence
that happens when microwaves encounter, um, anything that happens to
have some sort of moisture in it. Well, um Percy Spencer.
His discovery led Raytheon to release the world's first microwaveve
and in which incredibly compact. Right. Oh yeah, it was
the size of a refrigerator five and a half feet tall.
(05:28):
So yeah, the first microwave was just a little shorter
than my wife. But that sucker was a lot more
powerful than the ones that they have out now because
that it was it was essentially an industrial microwave machine.
It was you know, very very early on and very
very expensive cook an entire deer in just five seconds. Wow. Um, anyway,
(05:52):
they were they ran between two thousand and three thousand
dollars yea, and the very first one cost about five grand.
They're very very the very first one five thousand dollars,
which in ninety seven was about the same price as
you could get for Poland you are just on a
roll today anyway, it's snowing outside. It's a snow day,
(06:14):
right anyhow. Um, so you know, this was a little
bit out of the price range of the average American household, right,
So Raythoon licensed the technology to t Happen. Uh, and
in nineteen fifty five, T Happen introduced the first domestic
microwave oven, which was still out of the price range
of the average uh, you know household, um, but you know,
(06:36):
as considerably cheaper than those giant industrial models. Um. And
then uh, Raytheon inquired Amana, so there you go to
the Amanda radar range. The two names came together and uh,
you know it's in sixty seven, Raytheon did their first
domestic hundred volt microwave oven, which was under five and
(06:58):
of course now they're you know, approximately seven dollars if
you really wanted to. You could go out buy one
ruin it by putting one of the things you're not
supposed to put in it, and then watch go out
and buy another one, and you're really only out likes.
So not that you should put anything uh weird in
(07:18):
your microwave. You shouldn't. You really shouldn't. Don't do it.
You could end up burning down the apartment. Besides, it's
more fun to watch it on YouTube because then you
let somebody else ruin their microwave and you get to
keep yours right, and you also get to hear all
the hilarious comments that go on in the background. Oh
my god, and wow and this is stupid. Yeah, and
(07:40):
then you're thinking, and you videotaped it, and not only that,
but then went to the next step of uploading it
to the internet to share it with everyone. So microwaves cook.
Oh yeah, let's get what they do using a They
have a hurts or two point five gigga hurts h frequency. Yes,
these are radio waves, remember so, um, let's that's specifically
(08:01):
the kind of electromagnetic radiation we're talking about in the
radio wave spectrum. And uh, they the thing waves of
this this frequency can be absorbed by water and fat
and sugar and some other stuff. Yeah, and uh, when
they do get absorbed by these materials, those materials begin
to generate a lot of atomic motion, which we also
(08:24):
can refer to as heat. So there you go. The
material absorbs these these waves, which then makes the material
heat up and that can cook a um, well, whatever
it is you put in there that happens to have water, bad,
sugar or whatever in it. But it also means that
certain other kinds of materials do not absorb these microwaves
(08:49):
as metal. Metal metal actually reflects it, which is which
is why you don't stick a fork or some aluminum
foil in your microwave oven, you know. But you know what, uh,
here's here's the thing is that if you do put
metal in your microwave, like regular metal, not not like
a foil, but something that has got more substance to it,
so like a pot or whatever or it can, it's
(09:11):
not necessarily gonna spark um Ith. The sparking comes from
things that if you were to have it too close
to one of the walls of the microwave, where the
differential between the metal that's in the whatever it is
that you put in there and the metal of the
wall that could possibly create a plasma that would end
up sparking. But in most cases, what's really gonna happen
(09:33):
is the metal is going to just reflect the microwaves
off of whatever it is you're trying to nuke, and
then you're not gonna have a hot dish. It's the
food itself is not gonna get is not gonna absorb
enough microwaves to heat up properly because the metal has
reflected it all. And you know, just to to let
you guys know, I mean, yeah, you're not supposed to
(09:54):
put metal in the microwave, but it's because it inhibits
the food from heating up rather than anything else. It's
just like the the screen that's on your microwave door.
You know, you look through a microwave and you see
that little grid. It's a mesh. It's that's made out
of metal. It's there. It's there to reflect microwaves back
into the oven so that they don't go shooting out
(10:17):
and nuking everything in your house. Yes, actually that's uh,
the mesh is actually uh. I'm glad you mentioned that
because I was interested in the mash because I had
heard some people talking about why it was mesh and
why it was there. You know, it's very important to
have that mesh on there. Um. But you may wonder
why it has little holes in it. Well, actually I
(10:38):
um um. Funnily enough, I was at how Everything Works
dot org, which being not really a competitor of ours
actually sort of. Uh. You may know Lou Bloomfield who
uh used to be on the Discovery Show. Um some
assembly required. Um. He he wrote a piece. He actually
answered several questions about microwaves and um. One of those
(11:02):
is why the holes are there in the mash. Now, um,
the holes you need the metal reflective surface on the
door to keep the microwaves inside the oven and from
you know, coming out of there and nuking your head.
Should you be checking on the condition of your dinner? Um? Well,
you know, and somebody's gonna bring up the fact that
we're using the word nuke when it's not actually nuclear,
(11:22):
but that it's it's colloquial. We're using nuke in the
colloquial to microwaves something. Yes, but you need that mesh
there for one to do that. But you also have
to see the condition of your food or whatever. It
is that you put in their coffee popcorn. Um, and uh,
the holes are in there and you would think, well,
maybe those are gonna let the microwaves out well as uh,
(11:44):
as Luke Bloomfield explains, the microwaves are actually at a
have a larger wavelength than the holes in the mash,
so you can see in, but they can't come back out,
which is really cool that it's and they're actually they can, uh,
the wavelengths being you know, few centimeters to even feet
in size. That's um, that's pretty cool. It's a lot
like the prison I drive by all the time. You
(12:06):
can see in, but they can't get out. Okay, So anyway,
moving on to talking more about how these microwaves heat
up material and cook them because microwaves are absorbed by
this whatever material you've put into the microwave itself. Um,
not necessarily because the foods that you put in there
(12:27):
to be to have them absorbed, right, Yes, yes, that's
what I mean. Specifically, I'm not talking about the plates
or whatever, because some of those don't. Yes, okay, So
the stuff you put in the microwave to actually heat up,
Mr Pellette, the stuff you nuke in the microwave. Okay,
anything that anything that has these materials that do absorb microwaves.
(12:47):
They do so uniformly right, well, assuming that there's not
too thick. If if the material is too thick, like
if you were to put an entire chicken breast, for example,
in there, and the chicken breast was a particularly meat
each can breast, that might not be the best idea
because you might not the microwaves might not be able
to penetrate deeply enough to really heat up the chicken
(13:10):
breast in a uniform way, and then you could end
up with some raw chicken in the middle, and that's
not good. Raw chicken in the middle, And depending on
how long you cook it, it could be so you know,
crunchy on the outside that you couldn't even eat it. Yeah,
it'll be in it rubberized. So a normal oven cooks
through uh you know the whole convection conduction thing. Yes,
it's where you're conducting heat from one area to another.
(13:33):
So you're cooking from the outside in. Heat is being
applied to the outside of whatever the food is. That
heat slowly moves inside and then eventually you have a
cooked meal. And usually that means the outside is crispier
or as as more well done if you prefer, then
the middle is has has had heat applied to it
(13:55):
for a longer time and uh and in a more
direct way. Microwaves accord s don't do this. The material
absorbs the microwaves, and microwaves are being bounced all around
the the oven so that it's hitting. Ideally, it's hitting
the food from pretty much every direction possible at that point,
but of course it doesn't. Each microwave is a little
bit different and they changes the age, which is why
(14:18):
they have that carousel in the middle to spin the
food to try to make sure that everything gets heated.
People who use older microwaves often have to stop halfway
through and rotate the food and then started again because
just because the way the microwaves are are are the
microwave ovens are designed, microwaves do tend to hit one
side more frequently than another. I mean, it's because they
(14:40):
go through this little microwave trough and then they come
into the oven itself. They're not completely randomized, so if
you aren't, if you don't have a carousel in your microwave,
you may have to turn the food once or twice
in order to have it heat evenly. Um and um. Yes,
I was going to say the the microwaves are hitting
(15:00):
the food and they're heating it up, but the air
inside the microwave oven is staying at relatively the same
temperature because the air is not absorbing the microwaves. Um.
And this is another something interesting I found by reading
our article about microwave and something site um that uh.
I always wondered about those little silvery sleeves that you
(15:21):
get with certain kinds of food like hot pockets. Yes,
not that we're not we're not sponsored by them or anything.
It's not. That's a good example. Without them, I would
have died in college. But yes, things that you want
crispy on the outside, because things when I was talking
about the chicken breast earlier, when I said crispy, it's
not We're not talking like the crust on a slice
(15:42):
of bread. We're talking rubbery and hard and black in
some cases from carbonization. Um. Now this, if you want
something like that, like something with a uh that has
been fried to be sort of crispy on the outside,
you're gonna have to heat up the outside more than
you heat up the the middle and do that. They
use this foil. That foil is designed to absorb those microwaves,
(16:08):
and it heats up faster than the rest of the food,
which heats at the outside of the food in addition
to cooking the rest of it, so it makes the
outside crispy. It's kind of it's kind of simulating what
would happen if you put it in a regular oven. Yes,
because it's not an approximation. I mean it is an approximation.
It's not the real thing. Yeah, exactly, you can only
kind of sort of fake it. Um and uh, let's
(16:31):
let's talk a little bit about what actually is going
on here when you when you switch your microwave on.
So what's going on here? You plug your microwave in. Now,
First of all, microwaves have a switch that um will
only remain shut if you close the door, So the
microwave will not operate while the door is open, because
(16:51):
the circuit is not is not complete until you close
the door. It's very important for the safety of everybody
on the outside of the microwave. People inside the microwave,
you're kind of screwed. So the door closes, that completes
the circuit. No no. I. Uh, you close the door,
(17:12):
You've completed the circuit, and then the electricity from your
from the power outlet comes in through the microwave, and uh,
it goes through first a regular Uh, it goes through
a low voltage UM section of your microwave, which this
is what powers everything from like uh, your timer, the circuitry,
(17:35):
everything that the fan that will turn as the microwave
is going, or the carousel that turns as the microwave
is going, UM, all the low voltage stuff. UH takes that.
That's what hits first. After that, it goes into the
high voltage transformer and this boosts the voltage significantly because
(17:55):
it turns out the magnetron um not the leader of
the Decepticons. As I will discovered, you were just talking
about transformer. This is true, um, but yeah, that's what
confused me. I was like, it goes into a high
voltage transformer and it's called magnetron. Is it a Decepticon? No. Uh.
The high voltage transformer then feeds energy into the magnetron,
(18:16):
which is what converts the electricity into radio waves known
as microwaves. Uh. The microwaves are there's a fan that's
blowing and the reason the fan blows is to kind
of break up the microwaves so that they go in. Uh,
it randomizes it a little bit so that you don't
just have a stream of microwaves hitting a very specific
(18:37):
spot on the in the oven, because otherwise you would
just have one really hot spot and the rest of
it wouldn't be very effective, which would mean you would
have to place food in a very specific point in
the oven um, which kind of you know, defeats the purpose.
So uh, it goes. The microwaves go through essentially a trough. Really,
(18:57):
it's it's a guidance system. They come into the oven,
they get randomized a bit, they bounce around until they
are absorbed by something um or they just fizzle out,
and then then you get your hot, tasty popcorn, which
I can't stand because it gives me migraines. Yeah, I'm sorry,
but stove cooked popcorn is so much better the microwave popcorn.
(19:20):
It just is. Yeah. Oh, and although it is a
quick sack, I agree. I should say that the trough
I'm talking about, it's it's a metal channel. It's actually
called the wave guide. The name just totally jumped out
of my brain. While I was talking about it. But
as I looked on in my notes, I realized, hey,
I actually did write that down wave guide and so yeah,
(19:41):
I'm Steve. Will be your wave guide today. Right on
your left you will see the microwaves. Actually you won't
because it's outside the range of visible light. Yeah, and uh,
if you want to know how magnetron's work, wow, this
gets this gets pretty complicated. Yeah, you know, I didn't
into that in my research. So they are made up
(20:03):
of an anode, a cathode, a filament, and a couple
of magnets and um. The idea here is that you're
generating a flow of electrons that go from the cathode
to the anode. You use the magnets to alter the
path of the electrons so that they spin in a
Instead of going in a straight line, they go in
a curve, and this curve gets tight and they start spinning.
(20:24):
This is what generates the radio frequencies, the microwaves. And um,
it's you know, I've I've read this description three or
four times and then I realized, you know what we
need to do send an email to stuff from the
science lab and have them explain how magnetrons work because
I think it's more science than tech at this point. Um,
(20:47):
it's actually pretty cool. There's some great illustrations on the
web in various places that show you what the anode
and the cathode look like. Um, the anode actually has
chambers in it. Uh. And I read the technical description,
like I said, three or four times, and I'm still
not entirely certain exactly what the mechanics are or you know,
the physics are behind this. But yeah, you uh, you
(21:09):
pump the high voltage through and uh, you generate the
electron flow. The magnets alter the the path of the electrons.
That's what creates the radio frequencies, which will eventually cook
whatever it is, you know, your Rama noodles or whatever
that you're thrown in there. I've thrown out a lot
of brand names. Yeah, you know today, I didn't mean
to do that. Well again, I'm thinking, like I don't.
(21:33):
I don't use microwave ovens as often as I used to.
If I do use microwave oven it's to heat up
something that I cooked in a more conventional method. Um.
Mostly because the foods that tend to come design specifically
for microwaves also don't tend to be very healthy, and
I'm trying to eat healthier now because I want to
last a nice long time to to hunt your every
(21:56):
waking moment. You know, I've seen green friendly websites talk
about using microwave ovens because they use less energy, they
are very efficient, um than conventional ovens, so you know
there is an advantage in that. That is true. Um, However,
I can't stand what they do to bread. Yeah, well
(22:17):
I can eat this for the next two seconds, so
I guess we can talk very quickly about some of
the stuff that you shouldn't put in a microwave. Um.
And honestly, people don't put this stuff in a microwave. Um.
If if it doesn't hurt you, it will probably hurt
your microwave. Yeah, if nothing else, you may end up
damaging your microwave, which is not gonna win you any
points in any household. But damaging yourself is certainly not
(22:39):
good either, so please don't. So, for instance, have you
seen any videos of someone who's cut a grape almost
all the way in half and then microwaved it? Um?
You know no, But I actually read a one of
those questions by Mr Bloomfield. Um. Actually probably Dr Bloomfield.
Um I was talking about blueberries because they were wondering
why they're blueberries were catching on fire. He was saying, well,
(23:01):
actually the blueberries are not technically catching on fire. But
I'm thinking, I'm thinking, what I think I know what's
happening here. So you cut a grape almost in half
until it's just being held together by the skin on
one side. So you cut them long ways, put them on,
say like an upturned coffee mug. You put set the
(23:23):
microwave for you know, fifteen seconds or something, and then
you'll start to see the grape spark and sometimes you'll
see some pretty impressive sparks fly up out of the grape.
Sometimes it might even catch on fire, and you're thinking,
what the heck is happening here? Why are grapes doing this?
The theory here is that the microwaves hit the grape,
which then heat up very the grape. He's very quickly.
(23:46):
There's a lot of moisture in that grape which ends
up gasifying. It turns into a gas exactly. Well, that's
the thing is that first it's a gas, but the
microwaves excite the gas, turning it into a plasma. So
a plasma is an ionized gas. It's a gas in
which free electrons are roaming around and it is uh,
(24:07):
it's it's one of them. It is the most common
form of matter in the universe. The sun is plasma.
So you're you're technically turning a bit of that grape
into plasma. It's it's the evaporation from the grape ends
up being excited by the microwaves. That becomes an ionized
gas and that's what you see when it sparks. Um
(24:28):
and a lot of other materials will do similar things
when you put them into a microwave. That will give
off this um, this gas that can get excited by
the microwaves. So yeah, don't do grapes um, don't put
don't put eggs. Just like an egg in its shell,
don't do that. Don't put that in the microwave. It
(24:49):
will explode the the internal part of the egg will
heat up to the point where the steam generated will
be too great for the egg to maintain structural integrity.
And then you have a massive mess. Bar of soap
ivory soap, but there's another brand name for you. Put
a bar of soap in there, and it ends up
turning into a big foamy mess. But fortunately it's easy
(25:11):
to clean because it's soap. Um actually might end up
cleaning your entire microwave in the process, but I still
don't recommend you to do it because you could end
up burning yourself very badly. Um. Let's see what other
things lightbulbs do. Not put any kind of lightbulb into
a microwave. Yes, the microwaves can heat it up and
make it light up in your microwave and it looks neat,
(25:34):
but they will explode, which, first of all, that's incredibly dangerous.
You're talking about shards of glass flying around. Uh. Second, well,
if you're using a fluorescent light bulb, you've got some
really nasty chemicals in there, like mercury that can be
uh they're very toxic, and you don't want to release
that into your environment. Peppers, you don't want the nuke
(25:54):
peppers if you can help. But you know why, why
not because they give off plasma, but because they will
possibly release some steam that has kept say us in
it and then you've just tear gas yourself. Nice ask
me how I know this? Oh yeah, and you know
our producer of the day, Matt it's also nodding and
(26:17):
owning up to Mr Frederick and I apparently both enjoy
these spicy foods. And we can tell you by the
way nuking dried peppers particularly bad as I discovered. Yeah,
you don't want to do that. If you don't, if
you value things like your eyesight and um and the
(26:39):
love of those around you, because nothing, there's nothing quite
like spraying pepper spray across an entire living area to really, um,
you put a strain on relationships. You know. One other
thing you don't want to do is overheat stuff you like,
like a like a type of water superheating, yes, like
(27:00):
quid And people think this is some kind of a myth.
How how could water explode on you? Well, the thing
is if you make a liquid too hot past the
point at which it's going to boil, and if the
container it's in is so smooth that there are no
nuclayic sites there for the water to actually boil. Yeah,
I mean something generally, a liquid that boils needs something
(27:20):
to boil on, like a pebble or something to introduce
some some kind of irregular surface for it to start
boiling on. If you uh, you know, NUCA cup of
coffee and then decided to put sugar in it, you
may suddenly have boiling coffee. What you've just done is
you have introduced a nuclaic site into a superheated liquid,
(27:41):
and then it's going to boil spontaneously, which looks a
lot like an explosion um and can severely burn you.
It can happen now most of the time. For this
to happen, like I said, you need to have used
some sort of very smooth vessel to hold the liquid
because otherwise it's going to find nuclayic sites find not
like find in a intelligent way. This is it's gonna
(28:02):
latch onto any nuclei, excite and boil within the within
the microwave itself. But if if it's like a very
smooth ceramic mug and then you put some like non
dairy creamer in it or some sugar something, it'll it'll
use as a nucleay e site and just boil immediately.
And sometimes just moving the cup will do it. Yeah,
(28:22):
because then you know the liquid is now moving and
it's it's incredibly dangerous. So yeah, you do need to
be careful with that. A lot of microwaves now come
with settings that are preset for certain things, including things
like reheating a cup of coffee. Um, and this is
stuff that the manufacturer has determined to be within the
safe zone. So even then you should still be careful.
(28:45):
But um yeah, good point. Glad you brought that up.
Thank you. Well, do you have anything else to say
about that? Now? I find myself excited by microwaves too,
so it was it's pretty cool. Oh well, you know,
it ended up being an interesting subject. I'm actually I
originally had a one way to wrap this up, but
I'm gonna change it up. I'm so just like just
(29:07):
warning you, Pullette. Our listeners have no clue what I'm
talking about. But we're gonna end with a little listener mail.
This listener mail comes from Matt from Marietta, Georgia, so
right up the street. Hey, hey, Matt, I hope you've
got enough bread and milk and toilet paper because I
don't know if you know this, but it's snowing outside. Matt,
says Chris and Jonathan, thank you very much for the
(29:28):
informative podcast. I'm a new listener and have been trying
to catch up on your previous episodes. I enjoyed your
November eleven, two thou nine podcasts and was hoping to
get a little more exposure to some of the topics discussed. First,
could you explain a little about plasma generators while not
cold fusion? You're back to the future reference made me
think of trash consuming technology. Also, as of yet, time
(29:50):
travel is not possible, and I'm gonna cut the rest
of Matt's email because we're probably gonna use these for
future episodes. Time travel is also probably something from stuff
in the science lab, but he wanted to know about
plasma generators and UH and trash. I actually wrote an
article about plasma waiste converters a long time ago. It's
one of my first articles while I was writing here
(30:10):
and how stuff works. So um. In general, what you
have is a plasma torch, which is again an ionized gas.
You have a gas that's being UH that goes between
two very powerful electrodes, which generates an electrical current. It
ionizes the gas, and it generates an incredibly hot torch,
a torch that's so hot that it can actually be
hotter than the surface of the sun. You apply this
(30:33):
torch to garbage and it either gasifies the garbage if
it's all carbon based, or it turns it into it
a it turns into slag, so you get too byproducts
style of this. You get a gas and you get UH.
First it's a liquid slag, but if you cool it
it becomes solid um. It's pretty fascinating stuff. I would
(30:54):
recommend reading the article. It goes into a lot more detail,
but you can learn all about how ahaps using plasma torches,
we could even create fuel from our garbage and UH
eventually have something like a mr fusion, although again it's
plasma plasma fication, not not called fusion. So thanks a lot.
If any of you have any questions or suggestions, write us.
(31:17):
Our email address is text uff at how stuff works
dot com. We have articles about microwaves and other nifty
gadgets on the site. To check that out and Chris
and I will talk to you again, possibly when it's
snowing really soon. Plasma for moralness and thousands of other topics.
Is that how stuff works dot com and be sure
(31:38):
to check out the new tech stuff blog now on
the house stuff Works homepage, brought to you by the
reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready are you
TechStuff News
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Oz Woloshyn
Karah Preiss
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