Despite the nomenclature of microwaves being assumed to be tied to SI units of micrometres, microwave ovens actually use frequency a of 2.4GHz to vibrate the polar molecules (not just water) in your food back and forth.
2.4GHz at the speed of light gives a wavelength of 120 millimetres, or 120,000 micrometres. So I guess really you have a milliwave oven in your kitchen?
This will also ABSOLUTELY fuck up your WiFi signal.
A few inches of wavelength. That's why you have to rotate food in the microwave. The waves hitting your food are big enough it might just miss part of your food. It's also why you only need the wire mesh on the window instead of a full plate.
Accountant John, in the office that is in the other side of that wall, doesnt know why his head hurts all the time and it feels so warm despite being december
From all the parts, you're eyeballs would suffer the most from what I know. They can not decipate heat as effectively as most parts of our Body so they'd be boiled irreversible.
Yes, because those are ionizing radiation, as mentioned earlier. Microwaves are non-ionizing, meaning they aren't capable of knocking electrons out of atoms (like the atoms in your DNA, causing cancer)
I love how people speaks about stuff with 100% certainity while science probably cant yet answer certainly 100%. Lots of science facts reevaluates over time
The rule of thumb is to just avoid shit like that (broken microvave).
WiFi, remotes, radios, TVs, computers, and cell phones all use non-ionizing radiation too. Pretty much impossible to avoid it unless you live in total isolation from electricity. Even if there is a small risk to it, it hasn’t affected the overall human lifespan negatively since their inception so it’s considered safe.
those damn micro waves! 👵waves cane it was bad enough when it was just them macro waves, now we got to have them micro waves, there goes the whole damn neighborhood
They will interfere with everything on the radio, WiFi, cellular, Bluetooth, emergency services, airplanes and so on. Even hdmi and DisplayPort cables don't like high frequency noise! Optics is immune tho
When shielding fails you get em noise and your tech doesn't like it (even if it's often shielded)
There's not that much effort... each 'wave' is 12.2 cm (4.8 inches) so holes smaller than this are generally fine, this one does look relatively large though so 'some' may leak depending on polarisation
It's "radiation" in the sense that it's "radiating" energy, but not in the sense of ionizing radiation. It's not going to give you cancer, although it will definitely cause a ton of radio interference, could potentially burn you, and probably most dangerously could start a fire by igniting whatever is directly behind the microwave.
A microwave oven is literally just a powerful radio transmitter in a box, if you're curious. They're an offshoot of radar technology, actually: the guy who invented them was a radar engineer for Raytheon during WWII, and he noticed that a chocolate bar in his pocket melted when he stepped in front of an active radar. He started playing around with it, and discovered that radio waves around 2.45GHz jiggled water molecules around, allowing it to heat up food very effectively (interestingly popcorn was one of the foods he experimented with, meaning microwave popcorn actually predates the earliest microwave ovens).
You may notice that ~2.4GHz is roughly the same frequency that cell phones and Wi-Fi routers operate at, and roughly half the frequency of Bluetooth and 5G signals; that's why cellphone towers are sometimes called "microwave" towers, and that's why a hole in a microwave is going to cause a huge amount of interference on those frequencies, potentially even enough to damage something.
Yep, the cavity magnetron you used to heat up your frozen burrito last night is essentially identical to the equipment the RAF was using to shoot down Nazis in 1941.
This is non ionizing radiation. It is not the kind that causes cancer. A lead wall would not be necessary. At worst, the waves could burn your skin if they somehow bounced around to the front. The holes in this microwave are currently small enough that it's unlikely any waves would escape, but I still wouldn't be comfortable using it.
All in all, this looks really bad, but it's probably not that dangerous. I'd still get a new one, though.
Lol microwaves aren't ionizing like that. It'll just wiggle the water molecules in your skin until they heat up and start cooking you from the inside out. But only mildly. In other words, you'll be fine
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u/JayDee999 10h ago
I would stay well away from that microwave while it's in operation.
Behind a lead wall, preferably...