4 ms·
That reminds me of an urban legend regarding microwaves, which doesn't seem entirely infeasible. It involves a man working at a small fast food stand, who worke
by 50CNT 11y ago
That reminds me of an urban legend regarding microwaves, which doesn't seem entirely infeasible. It involves a man working at a small fast food stand, who worked next to his microwave. Now his microwave was used often, and it had a small hole in the metal screen allowing microwave radiation to leak out. The man slowly starts to feel abdominal pains after a while, goes to his doctor, who diagnoses it as liver problems and recommends drinking less. A couple of months later, the man has died, and the autopsy reveals that parts of his liver were cooked.
I was told this story by my grandmother to prevent me from watching food cook in the microwave. That and cataracts, which can also be caused by heating up things that shouldn't be heated.
- runarb 11y agoThere is also the story of Anatoli Bugorski. He was debugging the worlds most powerful particle accelerator when he managed to look into the beam: http://www.strangerdimensions.com/2014/01/13/anatoli-bugorski-man-survived-proton-beam/ http://www.strangerdimensions.com/2014/01/13/anatoli-bugorsk...
- kuschku 11y agoAnd he’s become part of popular culture due to the annual satirical year in review panel at the C3 congress giving out the fictional "Anatoli Bugorski Award for applied nuclear safety".
- StavrosK 11y agoThat doesn't sound very feasible. Microwaves work by standing waves, the magnetron doesn't just cook things when outside the oven.
- 50CNT 11y agoI thought they worked by dielectric heating? Making polar molecules get all frantic and stuff. There is a safety mechanism to shut off the magnetron when the door is opened, and a screen to make the viewing window opaque to microwave radiation, but those can malfunction. [0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave#Effects_on_health https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave#Effects_on_health] [1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_burn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_burn]
- StavrosK 11y agoAs far as I know, that's the mechanism by which microwave radiation heats molecules, but the specific design of the oven is to produce standing waves so microwaves can become concentrated. I may be wrong, though.
- sevensor 11y agoNot wrong -- the safety screen is part of the cavity resonator. But if there's a hole in it, or if you defeat the door interlock, you can still cook yourself with microwaves. In general I'm not too concerned that I'm going to cook my eyeballs by looking at my spaghetti to make sure that it's not exploding all over the inside of the microwave.
- lfowles 11y agoGoing back to the "discovery" of microwaves for cooking food, the story I heard was a radar tech noticed a chocolate bar melted in his shirt pocket.
- fryguy 11y agoHere is a video explaining: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FhwTelc5Tg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FhwTelc5Tg The turntable in my microwave failed when I heated up a frozen pizza, and the result was part of it was burned, and part of it was still frozen.
- sedachv 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_burn#Injury_cases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_burn#Injury_cases