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Comment by darkclouds | Hacker News Reader

Various military's most notably the Russians experimented with body suits that microwaved their occupants to keep them warm in the polar regions.

For some reason the idea didnt catch on, anyone know why not?

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This sounds fake on my because generating microwaves is not really something you could 'shrink and distribute' to cover a body.

There is a reason microwaves are boxes.

If I had to guess, the suits were actually infrared heating elements

There are anecdotes of people getting exposed to radar and communications arrays. The results range from instant vaporization to minor burns and a warming sensation

https://www.quora.com/Would-anything-happen-if-you-stand-in-...

The translation isn't splendid, but that seems to describe someone being badly burned as a side effect of passing very high current, rather than by high-energy RF exposure.

There's also an anecdote I think I once heard from an old Lockheed engineer, about the idea of microwave cooking having been sparked by the misfortunes of birds exposed by surprise to WWII aircraft radar being tested. No idea whether that one's true or not, though; I was quite young and very credulous, so wouldn't put it past him to have been pulling my leg for the hell of it.

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info@celcook.ca (866) 697-0103 The Accidental Invention of the Microwave THE ACCIDENTAL INVENTION OF THE MICROWAVE Home » The Accidental Invention of the Microwave The Accidental Invention of the Microwave The Accidental Invention of the Microwave December 29, 2017 Commercial Microwave Canada, commercial microwave Toronto Commercial Microwave Commercial microwaves in Canada are the mainstay of restaurants, cafes, and cafeterias across the country. But before commercial microwaves in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver restaurants became popular pieces of kitchen equipment, the common microwave was considered a luxury item!

The microwave was invented accidentally in 1945 by a self-taught engineer named Percy Spencer, who was leading a radar project for the defence giant, Raytheon. While testing a new vacuum tube called a magnetron, he discovered that a chocolate bar in his pocket had melted from the heat. He decided to try another experiment by placing some popcorn kernels near the magnetron, and he watched as the kernels popped into fluffy popcorns.

Next, Spencer placed an egg near the magnetron and the egg began to move from the heat creating pressure inside the egg. The egg exploded and Spencer saw that the yoke had become hot. He realised that the low-density energy from the magnetron could cook food quickly. He created a metal box with an opening through which he fed microwave power. The energy was trapped inside the box, which created a high-density magnetic field. He placed food inside the box, and the heat generated by the energy cooked the food. The first microwave oven was born."

https://celcook.ca/the-accidental-invention-of-the-microwave...

When I was a lad and had to study physics, we got told thats because the microwaves are at the resonant frequency of water molecules (2.4Ghz iirc), and they cause these water molecules to oscillate causing friction which generates heat, and thus the microwave can cook food.

So this is why my question about the Russian body suits using microwaves to heat occupants in the polar regions is not a silly question.

Cell phone sized devices can easily emit watts of microwaves. Such a suit would just be an overpowered WiFi router and some leaky coax, and then a faraday layer to keep it in. I'm guessing the power level would be 30W or less.

Sounds like a fairly bad idea since resistive heating exists though.

Why on earth would you use a microwave emitter for heating rather than some sort of resistive heating wire? The latter is way simpler and is orders of magnitude more compact.

heating the item (in this case a person) directly by beaming waves at it might be more efficient than heating the something that touches the person. Not saying it's an obviously good idea, but there is an argument for it.

Resistive heating elements are simpler, lighter, and cheaper?

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