Measuring the speed of light with chocolate and a microwave oven

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53 points·jank··11 comments

Super awesome. I must do this. With kids.

Probably best to stick to doing it with chocolate.

No, no. I think the man is on to something, let's try it with kids.

I saw this demonstrated by Clifford Stoll, except he used marshmallows. Fascinating stuff; my son is 9 now, and just started getting into being able to understand a little bit of this. I can't wait to do this with him.

I have a microwave that doesn't rotate. My chicken always comes out unevenly heated, but it won't anymore! Tonight, through the power of science and chocolate, I'm going to find the standing waves in my microwave.

I've always wondered why microwave ovens have static sources (and thus standing waves.) Why not have the emitters reorient themselves as they cook, perhaps following a space-filling curve?

Rotating plate is much cheaper and simpler, more robust...

Many microwave ovens have a mode stirrer, a free-wheeling metal fan at the exit of the waveguide. The ventilation air flow makes it spin, and the angled vanes reflect the microwaves more or less evenly throughout the oven.

I thought microwave ovens that didn't have rotating plates tended to be of the commercial type.

And that to compensate for the lack of rotation, they used magnetic fields (presumably created by electromagnets) to shift the microwave radiation peaks around the oven itself.

We did this in my AP/IB physics class in high school, except with marshmallows like michaelcampbell commented. We packed the marshmallows in together and stopped the microwave right when they started to expand.

Judging by the pictures, he used really expensive Swiss chocolate from Lindt.

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