Physics of the Microwave Oven Essay example -- physics kitchen microwa

Physics is in every area of life from the starry skies we see at night to the cells inside our bodies. Even what might appear to be the simplest thing is actually very complex when one looks at the details. Physics helps us understand the basics of how life operates. Microwave ovens are often used to reheat left over food, cook TV dinners and frozen foods, and to quickly heat food but is seldom recognized and understood by those who use them. People typically don’t know how a microwave oven operates, how it is structured, or how the food is actually heated. Microwaves were first created in 1947 being 1.8 meters in height and 750 lbs created by Percy Spencer while building magnetrons for radar sets during World War II. The magnetrons would allow the radar sets to indicate where the enemy machinery was located, since the microwaves would reflect off metal. When Percy Spencer was working with the microwaves he noticed that a chocolate bar melted when exposed to the microwaves. Testing the capability of the microwave to cook food he used first popcorn which was successful and secondly an egg which exploded. The first microwaves, then called the Radarange, were used only in the military and for large restaurants due to their size, then the size was decreased in the 1952's and was priced $1295 which models the microwaves we see in households today. According to Miriam-Webster's Dictionary an electromagnetic wave is "one of the waves that are propagated by simultaneous periodic variations of electric and magnetic field intensity and that include radio waves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, X rays, and gamma rays." What this actually means is that electromagnetic waves have both electric and magnetic fields that o... ...g tough many people will stick a moist paper towel or napkin over the bread lockingthe moisture in and keeping it soft. TV dinners as we all know are usually made for the microwave as well as other types of quick meal foods. These foods usually are frozen so they have a substantial amount of moisture which evaporates unneeded water, but doesn’t dry out the food as it is being cooked. As many have heard it is not a good idea to cook an egg in the microwave, as the inside of the egg heats up it expands, however the shell on the outer surface is a solid rather than a fluid so it doesn’t expand as rapidly or as much as the liquids on the inside do therefore causing the egg shell to break. An egg shell break is not typically such a bad thing on the stove since the egg is being slowly warmed up, but in the microwave it heats up even more quickly and explodes.