Talk:Microwave oven

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[edit] Split microwave oven into microwave oven and microwave heating

This article is getting rather long. I think it might benefit from being slitted into microwave oven and microwave heating. The former will emphasize the domestic and culinary uses of a microwave oven, while the latter will delve deeper into the theoretical background and deal with industrial and scientific usages such as textile drying or analytical chemistry. Does it sound like a good idea? --Tunheim 10:05, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Keep it as one article. The background science is often what people want to know if they are looking up "microwave oven". Manassehkatz 15:00, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Would you then be comfortable with having sections on textile drying or analytical chemistry in the microwave oven article? --Tunheim 17:09, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I would be comfortable with that as long as the devices used for such activities are considered "ovens" in some reasonable sense. From the beginning of the oven page: "An oven is an enclosed compartment for heating, baking or drying." This is not exclusive to heating of food, and I don't think Microwave Oven needs to be a food-only page. Manassehkatz 23:25, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, some of these devices would probably not be considered ovens in any but the most liberal use of the word. However they would fit nicely under the heading "microwave heating", a heading that currently redirects to "microwave oven".
I guess I just realized that I never stated that the reason for the split is that "microwave heating" redirects to "microwave oven"? Does my proposal make more sense considering this? --Tunheim 07:20, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
I also vote keep this as one article and not split it. —Lowellian (reply) 00:08, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
This is not a poll. This is a discussion. Please provide a rationale for your opinion. --Tunheim 16:55, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Microwave heating might clarify some science and other applications missed by this article (the actual interaction with water, heat guns, etc). But most of what's here is in the context of debunking myths and giving warnings for actual microwave ovens. So this article is pretty focused on the title. Maybe there's room for another article. But microwave heating and microwave cooking are two different things, and accidental microwave heating of things which are not to be cooked should be covered in microwave oven. Potatoswatter 08:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I say spilt it for when I looked it up I was really looking for the invention and developement behind the microwave rather than the 'how it works' side of things. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.89.69.245 (talk) 08:51, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

The split would allow the "microwave heating" article to address other applications of microwave heating (e.g., termite control) that just seem out of place in a "microwave oven" article.
—Darin McGrew 05:40, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree on the split also, the majority of searchers are probably expecting information about the small appliance when they look at this article. The more industrial and scientific content can be put in the heating article. Eli lilly 15:32, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

When I got an Astronomy qualification (At the age of 12!) I needed to access information about things like Microwave Energy without having to trawl through pages of text on Microwave Ovens. It would be easier to keep them as two separate subjects so people can access information quicker. Dan Tucker 21:45, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't see the need to separate it, even after reading opinions of others, and if it does happen, I have heard of microwave heat possibly causing cancer, and wikipedia would help convince me. So, please include that in the section. Alyssa G., 22 Jan 08

Indeed, I agree with you Dan, splitting it up will make it easier for people to access the information they want. And I would call those pages "Microwave heating" and "Domestic microwave oven" to distinguish them more clearly. It should have an overview of the safety issues, with a link to the "Microwave heating" article, which should go into the issues in more detail. Just "Microwave oven" would also refer to industrial applications and that's not what we want. BDWBrussels 17:50, 29 May 2008

I agree that the article should be split, with the "Microwave oven" or "Domestic microwave oven" article focusing on the use of the microwave, preferably including a section on the features that are generally included on a microwave. That's what I was looking for, specifically the beeping noise that many microwaves make when one presses a button. I think that the split would allow the two articles to each be more focused; right now, the article seems without direction, discussing both the appliance and the science behind it. I also agree that the eventual "Microwave oven" article should have a section on the history of the appliance.Kleio08 (talk) 15:36, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Putting live animals in microwaves

Shouldn't there be something in the Safety and controversy section that says that live animals should never be put into a microwave, and the effects of what happens if they are (ie. death)? I know it's painfully obvious but an encyclopedia is supposed to assume the reader is completely ignorant of the subject matter. 65.40.239.99 03:13, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

People that do such stupid things never read things like this anyway. Nevertheless i added Added Microwave_oven#Heating_of_living_tissue. Now a reader has to be both ignorant, unable to follow simple logical deductions and completely devoid of common sense. --Tunheim 07:43, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Or sadistic. Or just morbidly curious. Potatoswatter 08:19, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Neither of which contradicts Wikipedia:Five pillars. So go ahead, be bold! :-) --Tunheim 17:53, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I changed the title of the section. It's about inserting animals into the microwave, not about heating living tissue. Malamockq 15:33, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

This section is completely unnecessary. It lacks citation, smells of OR, and is both unencyclopedic and instructional. See: WP:BEANS. I'm pressing for its removal. -Etafly 14:48, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Good call. This section is rubbish. I'm sure the convection oven article doesn't have a similar section, nor does the blender. There are a lot of things one "shouldn't do with live animals", but it's ridiculous to remind people in an encyclopedia. -Mikeeg555 06:10, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Removed. -Etafly 06:41, 30 April 2007 (UTC)


I don't think it needs it's own section, it could be stated somewhere, just not have a section devoted to the outcomes of putting an animal in the microwave ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.91.92.76 (talk) 21:32, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Gak! See WP:BEAN. SBHarris 23:23, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] ARAD Missile Decoy

I have heard that during the NATO intervention there, Serbian SAM gunners would take a few microwave ovens, wire around the safety interlock and run them with their doors open. This would decoy off HARM missiles quite effectively (some Serbian missile sites had over a hundred HARMs fired at them without effect), presumably provided they turned off their actual radar in time. Finding a source for this may be entertaining. Kensai Max 06:12, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Could be true. But could just as easily be an urban legend. But I agree: Finding a source could be entertaining. --Tunheim 18:22, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
I used to work on radar systems for the military, and although I don't know what frequency HARM missles seek in on (possibly a multitude), but I would assume that a HARM would lock onto the "strongest signal." I would think that a radar-emitting station (such as the ones that the HARM was designed for) would emit FAR more radiation than what a microwave put out. If a radar site disabled their radar system, the HARM missile would have missed anyway. Incidentally, I watched a Mythbusters episode (currently playing on the Discovery Channel, don't kill me if I've violated a copyright/trademark) in which the participants were trying to find a way to defeat a Police radar, which operates at 12.5 GHz I believe. The jury-rigged microwave ovens were mounted to the front of a car with the doors open, turned on, and driven down a runway with a police radar gun pointed at it. They did not even faze the radar gun at all...in fact, the gun got a faster lock than when the car had no microwave headlights. --Perfectapproach 17:17, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Which isn't too surprizing, compare an open microwave oven to a corner reflector. Lars T. 17:57, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I just had to comment on the item about the police car experiment. I attended a college in Vancouver around 1964 and in there we had a radar assembly from a CF-100 mounted on a rolling rack so that it could be pointed out the window and aimed across the harbor. It was pretty impressive. Anyway, one day some of the students noticed a cop with traffic radar set up. They aimed the unit down toward him and he started to whack at the side of "his" radar unit. Apparently the boys in the class must have fried the mixing diodes in the cops radar unit. I imagine that the pulse power of the aircraft radar must have been way higher than the output from a microwave oven and a lot more focused. I'm innocent I tell 'ya, I just got to hear about it after the fact (after the damage was done).

[edit] Safety Measures -> Pregnant Women?

Some microwaves include a remote control or a button "start after... minutes", especially useful for pregnant women.

I fail to see(/the article fails to explain) how a remote control or a "start after X minutes" feature is a safety measure, much less how it pertains specifically to pregnant women. Could someone care to either clarify or delete this reference? --RealGrouchy 04:12, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

You won't receive an explanation to this -- it's simply rubbish. --Tunheim 07:45, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
It gives you a chance to get away from the door of the oven
where most of the radiation comes out. I have a friend
(we're both scientists) whose head hurts if he does not get
away from the microwave oven before the magnetron actually comes
on (which is about one second after hitting start on his oven).
The safety issue is real. See e.g. Bohr & Bohr, Phys Rev E
http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRE/v61/i4/p4310_1
which shows that microwaves can unfold proteins without
heating them. If certain proteins unfold and then misfold,
you get Alzheimer's or Parkinson's.
The first big rise in the rate of Alzheimer's was between
1979 and 1986, when microwaves became popular in the US.
The next big increase started in 2000 after cell phones became
popular.
Physicsjock 11:15, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
The above needs help from an expert (and so does the page on aluminium foil, for similar reasons). Could someone who works, say, for OSHA, Consumer Reports, or Underwriters Lab please help? This is a topic which really needs expert opinion, because the wrong information potentially could harm someone. I'm not taking a stand, however regarding the above statements:
The "Start After" feature is probably intended to do cooking when someone is not at home, or when several dishes need to be timed to arrive at a similar time. The idea that someone can "get away" seems like it might cause accidents ... imagine a pregnant woman trying to "get away" from something in a hurry ... to some ill-defined distance.
Since microwaves only penetrate to a limited extent, even if it was true (the child of) a pregnant woman was affected, would it only be after the first trimester, when the child was near enough the surface?
The examples by Physicsjock are perhaps important, but they are confusing. It's not legitimate to use a friend's headache as proof -- they might be imagining a reaction, they might be sensitive to some other part of the microwave, they might have a special medical condition, or a medical implant. The article that's cited is highly technical, and is not available in full without payment. What the article says which is directly related to the subject is that microwaves *may* have implications for biological systems. But it doesn't say anything about what the implications are.
There is strong financial incentive for microwave and cell phone makers to make claims there are no ill effects. And there's a natural suspicion that a high-tech technology may have negative effects which have not yet been discovered. This article needs a voice from someone who can demonstrate they are in neither camp.
Alpha Ralpha Boulevard (talk) 05:22, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Off-center placement

Off-center placement != even heating, say I. The main page claims that placing food in the exact center of the turntable defeats its purpose. It implies that even heating is created by making sure the food moves all around the inside of the microwave cavity, such that it experiences a nice variety of microwave field strengths. By even heating I assume we mean heating all sides of the food evenly (Heating the inner parts of food evenly with the outer parts of the food is a different issue that has nothing to do with the turntable). I'm also assuming that we all agree that the way to achieve the highest level of evenness is to have all parts of the food experience the same levels of microwave field strength for equal amounts of time. If the field strength within the cavity of the microwave were even throughout, then this would be a non-issue. You could just sit it still anywhere inside and heating would be even. But assuming it varies depending where you are in the cavity, then it seems obvious to me that the way to make sure all sides of the food get exactly the same experience during cooking, is to keep the food in exactly the same position (therefore ensuring that it is immersed in the exact same microwave field environment the whole time) while rotating the food such that every side of the food spends exactly the same amounts of time in the various possible positions and field strengths. If you place the food off-center, then it becomes possible that every time the food is facing left, the left side of the food is in a different field strength than the right side of the food experiences when the food is facing right. If the food were centered, then every side of the food would pass through the exact same field patterns on every spin cycle, thus ensuring exact evenness.

Am I missing some phenomenon that would make off-centered placement somehow more egalitarian than centered placement?

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Mholveck (talk • contribs) 16:53, 26 March 2007

I concur...assuming (doubtfully) there was a "cold spot" in the very centre of the oven, a very small item might be heated faster by being placed off-centre, but in being very small, it should then also receive even (if slower) heating within that "cold spot". Normal sized items, however, should be able to rotate through multiple hot/cold spots regardless of where on the turntable they are placed. I think the "off-centre=even-heating" in the article may sound like a bit of original research...Mikeeg555 13:05, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't matter whether the center of the turntable is a "hot spot" or a "cold spot"; the point is that any food that occupies the exact center of the turntable will only be exposed to that one spot. If you place your food so that none of it occupies the center of the turntable, then all of the food will receive a variety of different radiation patterns and no portion of the food will be permanently subject to just one pattern. Atlant 13:16, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
Assuming a regular multimode cavity microwave oven, imagine an 10 mm radius area around the central point of a rotational platter in the cavity. Further assume that this area has a field density significantly higher than the surrounding area. Imagine placing a block of butter in the center. In such a case a hole will be melted in the butter. However, if the butter was placed a few centimetres off/center this would not happen. This is another way of stating what Atlant stated above. I encourage everyone with a spare block of butter to try this out. --Tunheim 11:38, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Too much criticism

About 50% of the article is devoted to criticism and large parts of it are either poorly written or unsourced. We should aggressively remove such items to improve the balance of the article. Chris Cunningham 13:22, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

How about you just add more "good" stuff? I'm interested in reading the criticism. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.189.34.23 (talk • contribs).
Yep, add more good stuff rather than complain about the critism. Lacking sources?, look them up. Electron9 (talk) 15:00, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Picture

Why can't we ever get a normal picture of something? I mean, the microwave looks like it's stuck under the cupboard. Ah, forget it, I'm just here to blow off some steam. - Uagehry456 03:01, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Soviet ban & Swiss Research

I thought these should be mentioned since I've found numerous mentions of them on the Internet (eg http://www.relfe.com/microwave.html). Some of the Soviet research sounds worrying to me, especially the production of carcinogens. I wonder if there is any connection with research which shows carcinogenic Acrylamides being produced when starchy foods are subjected to high heat?

I've read that the Soviet ban was lifted "after Peristroika", but I haven't found anything which explained what scientific justification, if any, was given for lifting the ban. I wonder if the Russian language version of Wikipedia has more information?


81.98.208.169 21:44, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

The Soviet ban is commonly cited in microwave literature as an example of over zealous radiation protection that later proved uncalled for. The strict soviet limits were only in existence for around ten years, before it was realized how they were way too strict. --Tunheim 06:16, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
I think cited is a too strong word, mentioned is correct, but I have still to see any more definitive source of this claim. I have also seen (unsourced) discussions that the cause of the ban was not due to radiation protection, but due to the fact that it is fairly easy to convert a microwave oven to a radio transmitter, something that was heavily controlled in the soviet union. Mossig 09:05, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
I am not going to get into a battle about this entry. This will be my last comment.
Wikipedia is supposed to be a source of information. Removing information about the Soviet ban & the Swiss researchers does not improve Wikipedia. It reduces its usefulness and authority.
I had hoped that critics would add to the information by giving proper scientific reasons for why the ban was lifted & why the Swiss research did not carry weight in the general scientific community. Tunheim's explanation is extremely vague.
81.98.208.12 11:11, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
But Wikipedia isn't a vehicle to help disseminate any old rumour, urban legend, or scare. Without adequate references, that's exactly what this new information sounds like. We can still debate whether cell phones cause brain cancer; the jury's not really "in" on that one yet, but after 40 years of use of microwave ovens, we can be reasonably certain that the hazards of the ovens are pretty-well understood and bounded.
Given adequate citations and context, there's no reason your bew material can't stay. But without support and context, it can't remain in the form in which you inserted it.
Atlant 12:13, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I removed the text in discussion, as the submitter in the preceeding discussion said (more or less) that he would not give any sources to them. I have looked over the web, and the only sources to these statements I find is scaremongering quasi-scientific sites. I will be glad to add the statements back into the article again when releveant references are given. (The statement on the Soviet ban should be relativly easy to veriy, asp. if anybody knows russian?) Mossig 19:13, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

According to works of Metaxas [1] and Meredith [2] there was a short lived Soviet ban (or rather: very strict radiation limits) some decades ago. I believe this to be a fact. The reasons behind the ban, I don't know. However, since the ban was lifted after few years, I can only assume the reasons for the ban were found to be wrong, lacking or in some other way flawed. --Tunheim 09:57, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Any more detailed references to this? Mossig 19:21, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] microwave oven efficiency vs. conventional ovens

Just a thought - it might be hard for the average person to understand that the 65% efficiency of a home microwave is actually amazingly good... perhaps someone could estimate or give an example of the efficiency of an electric oven in heating one pound of food to 350°? It's probably well under 5% I'd imagine. Inlinesk8er 00:48, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Would it be correct to state most microwave ovens are ~65% efficient? I've figured my 1000W oven is nearly identical in efficiency to the 700W oven mentioned in the article. - MSTCrow 20:48, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
I second the suggestion regarding adding effciency of "calrod" based ovens, I specifically delved into this discussion to see if there was a mention of it.DGerman 16:00, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] James Lovelock

Why is there no reference to James Lovelock as one of the creators of the microwave oven? He was the first person to have a microwaved potato in the 1940s. He did not patent his invention because magnetrons were quite expensive then.

Any references to this? The only documentation I find on his homepage (http://www.jameslovelock.org/) is the claim that he has invented the microwave oven, and an article from 1955 (The microwave oven was patented in 1945): "# Andjus, R.K. and Lovelock, J.E. 1955. Reanimation of rats from body temperatures between 0 and 1 C by microwave diathermy. J. Physiol.,". Mossig 19:22, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Schematic/diagram

is missing from article, making it less clear than desired (and yes, i'm for split too) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.149.9.176 (talk) 05:31, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Incorrect/arranged picture ..??

A microwave oven with a metal shelf
A microwave oven with a metal shelf

This picture seems incorrect. Metal + microwave oven => Bzzzz, unless one pays really careful attention to standing wave node point locations. Electron9 (talk) 14:56, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I dunno as I can heat up those cans of soup with a rim of metal around it, but foil is, as you so correctly put it, "bzzzz." We still have a line in our microwave from when foil was in there and it heated up so much that when it touched the plastic, it burnt it. Maybe it's the type of metal?-Babylon pride (talk) 19:24, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

What is the purpose of this picture? Is it ok to place metallic grills inside a microwave oven? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.178.50.13 (talk) 07:05, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Some microwaves do come with these metal grills that fit in grooves in the side of the microwave. They allow you to heat more food at once, particularly when you need to keep two plates of food warm. They don't cause the microwaves any problems at all, but I don't know why that is. Maybe we should get a chemist to explain why, and what the distinction is. Has anyone checked the Microwave article? We might also want to add the explanation under "variants and accessories." Kleio08 (talk) 15:28, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Effects on food and nutrients" has no content

The section "Effects on food and nutrients" starts out by saying that studies have shown both positive and negative effects from microwave heating. However, it doesn't go on to say what was found. It just lists a bunch of articles. Many of the articles don't tell you the conclusions in the title, e.g. "Nutritional effects of microwave cooking." Would it be too difficult to summarize the contents of those articles, like someone did for the first one? At this rate, we'll just have a list of references instead of articles. — Sam 20:05, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Clarity issue

In the Principles section, the explanation of why the microwave radiation cannot exit through the conductive mesh on the viewing window is not clear. "Because the size of the perforations in the mesh is much less than the wavelength of 12 cm, most of the microwave radiation cannot pass through the door..." is the explanation given. However, the axis of motion of the radiation (direction the waves are traveling), and therefore the wavelength, is through (normal to) the door. But the perforations are on the same plane as the door. So, to a normal reader, the diameter of the perforations seems unrelated to the wavelength. It is therefore suggested that this explanation be expanded on. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Candlefrontin17 (talk • contribs) 13:30, 9 June 2008 (UTC)