When you warm up leftovers, have you ever wondered why the microwave heats the food and not the plate? (Well, some plates, anyway.) It has to do with the way microwave ovens work.
Microwave ovens use dielectric heating (or high frequency heating) to heat your food. Basically, the microwave oven shoots light beams that are tuned to excite the water molecule. Foods that contain water will step up a notch in energy levels as heat. (The microwave radiation can also excite other polarized molecules in addition to the water molecule, which is why some plates also get hot.)
One of the biggest challenges with measuring the speed of light is that the photons move fast… too fast to watch with our eyeballs. So instead, we’re going to watch the effects of microwave light and base our measurements on the effects the light has on different kinds of food. Microwaves use light with a wavelength of 0.01 to 10 cm (that’s ‘microwave’ part of the electromagnetic spectrum). When designing your experiment, you’ll need to pay close attention to the finer details such as the frequency of your microwave oven (found inside the door), where you place your food inside the oven, and how long you leave it in for.
Materials:
- chocolate bar (extra-large bars work best)
- microwave
- plate
- ruler
- calculator
- pencil and paper
It needs to be able to melt easily – I think smarties are too hard, if I recall right?
um can small sweets such as smarties work or not
That’s still fantastically close given that we’re using a chocolate bar and a microwave of various accuracy! You can try doing this experiment 3 times and average the final results to give an overall answer, which may be closer.
Is it okay if the published value is greater than the measured value? In our case it was. For the % difference we did published value (299,792,458) – measured value. Our % difference was 13.4%. What do you think we could have done differently?
Try moving the chocolate bar around – the second hotspot might be just beyond the edge of the bar.
Our chocolate bar is only producing one hotspot. Are there supposed to be two hotspots? Our chocolate bar is 5.5 inches. Does this effect the outcome of the hotspots? Will we be able to continue with only one hotspot?
Very fun experiment and interesting. Great for visual/hands-on learners. Have some strawberries on hand- after we completed our measurements, we dipped strawberries in the chocolate that was not burned by the hotspots-Yum!
Great question! The microwave makes light waves with a frequency of 2,450,000,000 Hertyz (cycles per second). Once cycle is when you go from peak to peak on a wave, and you can see this with the distance between the bits of chocolate that melt. Multiply the cycles per second by something measured in meters per cycle gives meters per second, which is the wave’s velocity, or the speed of light. Scientists make educated guesses about what they think will happen, and then do an experiment and observe the results so they can better understand the world!
What do the hotspots on the chocolate represent relative to the waveform & frequency? What I am asking is, why does this experiment work (or come so close)? How does a scientist KNOW that this experiment will correlate to the speed of light? Thanks. LC
OK, thank you
No, 60 Hz is at the wall outlet. You want the number for the microwave output. Did you check under it or inside the door panel?
Do you live in the US? If so, use the numbers recommended in the video.
Aurora,
Our microwave isn’t very old and it doesn’t seem, but it said 60 Hz we couldn’t find any thing else we don’t know what to do? Please help us!
Unless it’s a really old or unusual microwave, most are 2450Mhz as shown in the video. Sometimes the sticker comes off. Try using this number and see how close you get to the answer for c.
Our problem is that there is NO listing of MHz on our microwave. It only lists 1.5 K/W. Advice?We even called GE and they don’t have any information on what the MHz is. Help! Advice?
I am curious – what happens if you elevate the plate, like putting it on two or three water glasses during the experiment? Do you get the same value?
We too, consistently get 9 cm between hot spots using our 2450MHz microwave.
The frequency stays the same, but you’ll probably notice something’s different with various power settings… which means you should test out BOTH and see if you notice any difference in the wavelength spread!
Thanks for the hints. We’ll try again as soon as we get some more test chocolate. Tim asks if it matters whether the microwave is set on high or low.
Good question. If the wavelength that hits your chocolate bar smacked it at the peak, then you’re right, it would be one wavelength. Most of the time, however, that chocolate bar is sitting in a spot that hits below the trough, usually in the middle (vertically), so you only get a half-wavelength measurement. The tricky part in visualizing this is that you can’t see the waves, and you have to guess where they hit in 3D space. You can elevate the chocolate bar using a glass under the plate while keeping it in the same spot and you’ll see that it still melts in the same spot.
You might be getting spots from two different beams. Move the chocolate around and see if you can find a spot where they are closer together.
We consistently get about 9 or 9.5cm between the hot spots, using our 2450MHz microwave. I wonder why our speed of light calculation is off by so much. ??????
I have a question about the wavelength calculation: If the peaks of the wave are at the hot spots on the chocolate, isn’t the distance from peak to peak (or hot spot to hot spot) a measure of the wave length? Could it be that the trough of the wave is causing a hot spot too?…..We’re having fun with this experiment, but that question is bugging us…Thanks
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We tried this expirement and “Wow!” We found out that the heat goes from the side of the microwave to the edge of the bar, bounces of, the goes to the other edge! Amazing! :l 😀