I had no idea how to even get started with electromagnetic waves.
Visualizing the microwave wavelength using a chocolate and an oven (although not my original idea) arose out of this need to understand microwaves a little better. (Check out part-I of this post)*
But you can do more with some better but less delicious equipment.
You can get a couple of neon bulbs from an electronics shop and place them in a grid inside the microwave to view the standing wave while the microwave is in action
As you can clearly see the bulb only lights up in the anti-node regions
of the standing wave while the remaining regions are the
nodes.
You can take this a step further if you have an infrared camera .
Mark Rober had this brilliant idea of using the infrared camera inside a microwave in order to ensure that food that is being microwaved is cooked evenly and completely on the inside.
And ElectroBOOM then took this to the next level by placing a cardboard box inside a microwave oven and looking at the heat map using a infrared camera.
That last gif my dear friends was the most satisfying physics animation that I had ever seen for a really long time ! It clearly illustrates the 3D standing wave heat map that is produced inside a microwave oven.
Although these aren’t the only ways to visualize the standing microwave pattern inside a microwave oven, but these are the ones that I was able to test them out with equipment that you can probably find at home or at school/university.
You are welcome to suggest more thought experiments, alternate methods or edits to this post, I would highly appreciate it!
It’s been a loaded couple of weeks! Everyone’s assignment is to get some R&R this weekend! (Rest & Relaxation!)
Don’t forget about your New Year’s Resolutions - meditate, exercise, sleep more! You won’t be able to take care of anything else, if you don’t take care of YOU first!