What Actually Goes On In Your Microwave? Find Out In This Insane Video

Devin Coldewey

Devin Coldewey is a Seattle-based writer and photographer. He has written for the TechCrunch network since 2007. Some posts he’d like you to read: The Dangers of Externalizing Knowledge | Generation i | Surveillant Society | Choose Two | Frame Wars | The User’s Manifesto | Our Great Sin His personal website is coldewey.cc. → Learn More

Friday, November 19th, 2010


We all have microwaves, and we all use them from time to time, and we all are baffled now and again by how one spot on the nachos can be practically vaporizing while another is as cold as death. This video shows a little bit of what’s going on in there, and it’s not just a bunch of wavy lines, the way I usually see microwaves explained.

See, microwaves excite anything conductive, usually the water in your food, and if you attach conductive wires to neon bulbs in an array, like this guy did, the waves will excite them in patterns you can see.

I notice this one is really blowing up along the side, there. Good job, microwave manufacturers! I’m guessing that one of the differences between microwave brands (and prices) is the “accuracy” of the microwaves, and that you’d see different distributions on this board in different devices. Uhh, I’ll just wait for the guy in the video to do that, because I don’t have the know-how to craft a bulb array in acrylic.

[via Make]

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