Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

okay so im dong the find the speed of light with a microwave and it says to take the rotating plate out and the drive mechanism out too. then it says to crack an egg and place it on a plate and cook for 10 seconds. but when i turned the microwave on without anything in it it started like flashing inside like it was gonna burst so i just turned it off. so what should i do?

please help! i really need help asap!

claudiajacinto - The reason for the rotating tray in the microwave oven is to evenly distribute the microwave radiation throughout the food you are heating. We need to defeat that part of the process (we don't want even heating). We want the egg to be exposed to higher and lower energy regions that will enable us to physically measure the distance between the cooked versus non-cooked parts of the egg. That measurement will coincide with the wavelength of the radiation and allow us to derive the speed of light.

I'm concerned that you said the instructions were to remove the revolving tray, and the drive mechanism. I'm worried about the flashing you observed. Hopefully you didn't remove anything but the revolving tray and used a non-metallic plate for the egg. Flashing shouldn't occur with just an egg and non-metallic item in the oven. Before you continue, verify that the oven hasn't been compromised. This is a good time to call some independent eyes (maybe a parent) into the process. Good luck, but be safe.

Rick Marz