The microwave has proved the Chinese stupid

[MidnightViper88]

First of all, it's obvious that microwaves cannot accept metal of any kind...Whatever happens that makes the chemical reaction with metal that sometimes sparks up a fire, someone else can go into detail with for me...But it's understood that unless you want a burned-down house, don't put any metallic object into a microwave...

But why don't we invent a microwave that can accept metal? I'm sure we have enough technology that can allow us to advance with microwaves to even a small point where you can put a fork in there for 15 seconds and not have to worry about...

But we havn't advanced that far, and neither have the Chinese with their carry-out boxes...The ones with the metal handels on them? Whether or not Chinese food is your thing, if you want to re-heat your General Pow Chicken or fried Teriyaki rice in the microwave, you're going to have to take it out of the box and put it on a seperate object or platter, all because of that little wire they put on there that's used as a handel...

If the Chinese were smart, they wouldn't put a metal handel on it, in pre-thought that people will want to re-heat their food in the microwave...But why not take the handel off? It wouldn't be the cute Chinese carry-out box anymore, but it would be more sensable to use plastic...






I came across this written from awhile in school, so don't ask...When you have a sober intellectual with a stoned friend in a boring World Civ class, you think up some random shit...

[ElChevelle]

My microwave accepts light metal objects.

My stereo, on the other hand, likes heavy metal.

[corkhead0]

Mircowaves ovens cannot accept metal because metal does not accept microwave radiation.

That aside, most people eat from a plate, not a take-out box.

[CaboWaboAddict]

Originally posted by corkhead0
That aside, most people eat from a plate, not a take-out box.

Better be armed with statistics in this forum if you want to make a blanket statement like that!
Mas Tequila!

[ElChevelle]

Originally posted by corkhead0
Mircowaves ovens cannot accept metal because metal does not accept microwave radiation.

cough*bull*cough.....hack hack cough*shit*cough hack

[Fickle]

Yep. It's bullshit. I can put a fork into my microwave and it won't bug out. If I put it in my father's microwave, it hums and sparks fly from the tips.

So what's the difference? Other than the fact that I can leave my fork in the spaghetti I reheat, I don't know.

[SSJ4 Gogitta]

How Microwave Ovens Work
by Marshall Brain

The microwave oven is one of the great inventions of the 20th century - millions of homes in America have one. Microwave ovens are popular because they cook food incredibly quickly. They are also extremely efficient in their use of electricity because a microwave oven heats only the food - nothing else.

A microwave oven uses microwaves to heat food. Microwaves are radio waves. In the case of microwave ovens, the commonly used radio wave frequency is roughly 2,500 megahertz (2.5 gigahertz). Radio waves in this frequency range have an interesting property: they are absorbed by water, fats and sugars. When they are absorbed they are converted directly into atomic motion - heat. Microwaves in this frequency range have another interesting property: they are not absorbed by most plastics, glass or ceramics. Metal reflects microwaves, which is why metal pans do not work well in a microwave oven.

How Microwave Ovens Cook Food
You often hear that microwave ovens cook food "From the inside out." What does that mean? Here's an explanation to help make sense of microwave cooking.

Let's say you want to bake a cake in a conventional oven. Normally you would bake a cake at 350 degrees F or so, but let's say you accidentally set the oven at 600 degrees instead of 350. What is going to happen is that the outside of the cake will burn before the inside even gets warm. In a conventional oven, the heat has to migrate (by conduction) from the outside of the food toward the middle (See the HSW article entitled How a Thermos Works for a good explanation of conduction and other heat transfer processes). You also have dry, hot air on the outside of the food evaporating moisture. So the outside can be crispy and brown (e.g. - bread forms a crust) while the inside is moist.

In microwave cooking, the radio waves penetrate the food and excite water and fat molecules pretty much evenly throughout the food. There is no "heat having to migrate toward the interior by conduction". There is heat everywhere all at once because the molecules are all excited together. There are limits of course. Radio waves penetrate unevenly in thick pieces of food (they don't make it all the way to the middle), and there are also "hot spots" caused by wave interference, but you get the idea. The whole heating process is different because you are "exciting atoms" rather than "conducting heat".

In a microwave oven, the air in the oven is at room temperture, so there is no way to form a crust. That is why foods like "Hot Pockets" come with a little cardboard/foil sleeve. You put the food in the sleeve and then microwave it. The sleeve reacts to microwave energy by becoming very hot. This exterior heat lets the crust become crispy as it would in a conventional oven.

Links
Microwave ovens are described by several interesting links on the web. Try these:

• For an excellent discussion of the different parts of a microwave oven and how they work together, click here.
• For a great collection of in-depth questions and answers about microwaves, click here.

[flamehunter69]

I put my take out containers with the metal handle in the microwave all the time never hurt anything here..

[Rellik]

well, any fine china with metal trim and cdroms will cause the microwave to go into an arcing fit, but is it dangerous? i doubt it.

heck, heres a guy who attempted to turn a microwave into a smelter (it's interesting what you find with a google search)

edit: damn, coulda swore I put that link in

[SSJ4 Gogitta]

riiiight, except "http://turn a microwave into a smelter/" isn't a valid link.

[griffinn]

Originally posted by Rellik
fine china with metal trim and cdroms

I'd like one of this fine china with cdroms!

Back on topic, one widely-used technique to cook chicken in a microwave oven without the tips of the limbs being reduced into bitter charcoal is to wrap the tips in aluminium foil. Yeah, occasional sparks will be generated but that's entirely harmless.

[horse-fly]

i once put a fork in the micro, and there were little lightning bolts shooting about

[ElChevelle]

NO!?!

[Rellik]

ohh, ever put a light bulb in for a couple seconds?

but be warned, the life of the filamant will probably be cut short

[Coman]

what if you turn your microwave on and make a hole in the door? what'll happen to you?

[ElChevelle]

Your Moo Goo Guy In A Pan will stain your shirt.

[. - .... .- -. ....]

Originally posted by MidnightViper88
But why don't we invent a microwave that can accept metal? I'm sure we have enough technology that can allow us to advance with microwaves to even a small point where you can put a fork in there for 15 seconds and not have to worry about...

Actually, there's nothing to stop you putting metal in the microwave. The way a microwave works is that it generates 2.54 GHz microwaves with a wavelength of about 12.4 cm (too small to fit through the holes in the metal grill in the glass on the door. This is at the same frequency as the natural frequency of water, and if you did physics in school, you'll know all about resonance - basically where something will vibrate if its natural frequency is generated nearby. This causes the water molecules in the food to vibrate, motion causes friction, fristion causes heat, heat causes cooking - you get the idea.

All that happens when you put metal in a microwave is that it will reflect the microwaves off in another direction, and if it surrounding the food, in the case of aluminium foil, the food won't get cooked, as the waves can't penetrate it.

As for the spearking that is generated from forks, cd-roms, aluminium foil, etc, the reasoning behind this is as follows - when the microwaves hit the aluminum foil, their electric fields push around the mobile electrons in the aluminum. Those electrons often accumulate at the sharp tips of the foil, where they jump off into the air as a corona discharge. The air around the tips ionizes as the electrons enter it and current can begin to pass through the air itself as sparks.

This sparking around sharp points is one of the reasons why you are warned never to put metal in microwave ovens. The other reason for the ban is that thin pieces of metal can overheat as the microwaves propel currents through them, thereby starting fires.

[griffinn]

Originally posted by ethan_h
...to vibrate, motion causes friction, fristion causes heat... penetrate... discharge.

Well most people would probably see it happening in this order: heat... friction... motion... penetrate... vibrate... discharge.

[Widdykats]

Originally posted by griffinn
Well most people would probably see it happening in this order: heat... friction... motion... penetrate... vibrate... discharge.

We still talkin' about microwaving????

[zootm]

Originally posted by MidnightViper88
But we havn't advanced that far, and neither have the Chinese with their carry-out boxes...The ones with the metal handels on them? Whether or not Chinese food is your thing, if you want to re-heat your General Pow Chicken or fried Teriyaki rice in the microwave, you're going to have to take it out of the box and put it on a seperate object or platter, all because of that little wire they put on there that's used as a handel...

I think it's a good thing. Reheating stuff in boxes will just give you a "blob" of food. If you reheat it on a plate, it gets much more palatable.

[Cognition]

I don't even have a microwave. Get a stove and put metal in it all you want.

[Fickle]

Originally posted by Widdykats
We still talkin' about microwaving????

no.



Final stance on microwaving: Toaster Ovens are much more fun and versatile.
However, using the two together (microwave to defrost, T.O. to cook) is the ideal way to create small cuisines that have enough nitrates to kill a small horse.
(IE: Hot Sausage in toaster oven, bacon in microwave, cook for hoever long it takes, plop some cheese on that susage, put the buns in the oven to toast lightly as the cheese melts, combine with mustard and one slice of pickle.)

[CaboWaboAddict]

Originally posted by Fickle
Hot Sausage in toaster oven, bacon in microwave, cook for hoever long it takes, plop some cheese on that susage, put the buns in the oven to toast lightly as the cheese melts, combine with mustard and one slice of pickle.

Sounds like it would go good with tequila!

[Fickle]

goes better with a cold beer.

[CaboWaboAddict]

[InvisableMan]

Originally posted by Rellik
turn a microwave into a smelter

melting solder isn't special. let's see someone smelt bronze or admantium or something.

personally, i eat my chinese food straight out of the box stright out of the fridge.

[CaboWaboAddict]

Originally posted by InvisableMan
personally, i eat my chinese food straight out of the box stright out of the fridge.

I like my Chinese food after its been eaten a couple of times already!

mas Tequila

[mark]

They were talkin about melting silver


edit: on the page linked by the page that was given here, the guy succeeded

[Rellik]

He did melt the plumbers solder, but He didn't actually melt the silver, he just made it glow red hot:

Although I fell short of melting the silver at 962°C, I did make it glow red-hot at around 800°C.

[CaboWaboAddict]

Originally posted by Nobby Nobbs
They were talkin about melting silver

????

Thought we were talkin' about heating Chinese food in the microwave???

Damn, second time today people corrected me on the topic - I need a drink!

[SSJ4 Gogitta]

And by the way, melting and smelting are two different things.

[mark]

Another crucible was prepared, lined in the same way, but this time with a clay-ferrite paste. 50 g of sterling silver was added, and the crucible was capped with a carbon lined shell. Although it became very hot the silver had not melted after 10 minutes of firing. The *******lined cap was replaced by one lined with magnetite/clay and the test was re-run. After 15 minutes firing the silver was found to have melted. A very exciting moment! Although the methods were a bit crude, a temperature of 900 degrees Celcius had been reached. Using a similar crucible, with a small mould attached, the first castings were made soon after. However, the process was not efficient enough to be really useful. Some simple calorimetric calculations showed that very little of the energy entering the chamber was actually getting to the metal. Much of it was being absorbed by the crucible, and the walls of the chamber were getting quite hot, showing that less than perfect absorption was taking place around the metal. Closer examination of the absorbancy of various materials followed, and attempts were made to formulate more efficient ferrite susceptors.

from here: http://home.c2i.net/metaphor/mvpage.html

(link taken from here)

[CaboWaboAddict]

Originally posted by SSJ4 Gogitta
And by the way, melting and smelting are two different things.

Melting: to liquify using heat
Smelting: to catch little fish with a net.

BTW Fried smelt go good with beer or tequila!

Don't forget to bite the head off the first one you catch!

[ElChevelle]

I smelt some hoobastank coming from her sub-abdominals.

[SSJ4 Gogitta]

Originally posted by CaboWaboAddict
Melting: to liquify using heat
Smelting: to catch little fish with a net.

BTW Fried smelt go good with beer or tequila!

Don't forget to bite the head off the first one you catch!

Smelting: to melt or fuse (as ore) often with an accompanying chemical change usually to separate the metal

Melting silver would simply change it from a solid to a liquid. Smelting silver (or gold) would melt it and infuse it with other chemicals to make the impurities rise to the top to be skimmed off, making the gold or silver more pure.

This process is done several time at the Royal Canadian Mint to produce 9999 fine gold and silver bullion (99.99% pure gold, or 24 karat) to strike as coins. The US mint does their silver for silver dollars (Silver American Eagles) as 9993 fine (99.93% pure), and their gold to 9167 fine (91.67% pure; 22 karat) for coinage striking. Silver-clad coins are 90% silver (9993 fine) and 10% copper.

[CaboWaboAddict]

Smelting is also a contraction of "Smelt dipping".

It aint in the Funk & Wagnalls but it is commonly used in the Great White North. Eh? You betcha!

[ElChevelle]

He who smelt it, dealt it.

[horse-fly]

it rhymes, so it must be true

[MidnightViper88]

Originally posted by ElChevelle
I smelt some hoobastank coming from her sub-abdominals.

The band of the same name got their inspiration after they found a gas station in Germany that actually was named "Hoobastank"...

You learn something new every day...

[Widdykats]

Yes, yes you do!