Mobile phones and microwaves...

[jidboy85]

I was under two assumptions here. Firstly that mobile phones operate on weak microwave signals, hence the recent worry about kids frying their brains through excessive use and secondly, that microwave ovens were designed to contain microwaves thus protecting you. So when i placed my mobile phone in a microwave and tried to call it, my phone rang.. Do i need a new microwave or is something else at work here?

[rojash]

The shielding of the oven is tuned pretty precisely to the frequency used by the oven, thus ensuring maximum efficiency. Phones operate on a completely different frequency.

[Skids]

The mistake you made was in not turning the microwave on for two minutes on full power first.

[kempie]

Skids - please do not offer potentially dangerous advice even in jest.

[QmunkE]

The microwave oven uses waves of about 3 cm I think - this is to do with the required oscillation frequency needed to make water molecules virbrate and heat up. Not sure what the phone wavelength is.

[Phantaxus]

SkyOne has a great little science program called Brainiac sadly not running at the moment.

one of the questions asked was can a lot of mobile phones all ringing at the same time fry an egg? Answer: No

[Tweed]

The diameter of the holes in the microwave door are smaller than the wavelength of the microwaves in the oven, therefore they cannot excape. Your phone operates on a different (lower) frequency and therefore the wavelength is longer and is able to passs through.

[delapeyre64]

Your microwave oven just acted as a antenna as their was no common ground plane, And as previously said the oven is designed for the frequency,s it has to contain.

We have been siting our kids in front of Cathode ray tubes for years but they are accepted as furniture so!

We are bombarded by cosmic and solar radiation day and night and radiation from transmission lines, all these thing to answer a previous question will further our evolution but some losses will be incured along the way?