Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I am currently finished with the Speed of Light project using egg whites and cooking them in the microwave. I used 12cm of egg white, 6cm of egg white, and 24 cm of egg white, cooked them, and measured the hot spots. I am working on the calculations to find the speed of light by taking the wavelength multiplied by the frequency. The only problem is, I don't know whether to use the value I recorded when I measured the hot spots, or take that number and multiply it by 2, and then multiply it by the frequency. The project on this website says the value I got is 1/2 the wavelength of the microwave. HELP!

Hi hsattler14,

This sounds like a fun little project. The distance between hot spots tells you the half wavelength of the wave, so you need to multiply the distance you measured by 2:

Speed of light = distance between hot spots * 2 * frequency

You'll also want to make sure you watch your units. You'll probably want to convert your hot spot distances to meters and microwave frequency to hertz before multiplying them. If you do that, then your speed will be in the nice, friendly units of meters per second.

Let us know if we can help with anything else!