Lunchtime and microwave
As usual yesterday I was having lunch with my colleagues and good friends Paul & Murali. We usually end up having absolutely weird conversations during our lunches from science, to sociology to literature, to philosophy and often on topics we know little about but have an opinion on. So we found out that we are not sure the exact mechanism by which microwave ovens work and why metal sparks inside a microwave oven in use.
I decided to ‘google’ - the source of all information. (or Google is like the guru who leads you to the source of knowledge …hehe) and came to know of very interesting things like its only a metal with edges that will spark in a microwave, not if we place a nice smooth round ball of metal :).
Most interesting however, were these little experiments that people have been conducting, like generating plasma discharges in a microwave and capturing it on film. Ever microwaved a grape?
Don’t try. But for pleasure look at the images on this page:
http://home.earthlink.net/~marutgers/fun/microwave/microwave.html
