Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I was doing the "measuring the Speed of 'Light' with a Microwave Oven" experiment, and I was wondering what the independent variables were, and if there were none, if you could suggest some please? I'm in the process of experimenting and I started to wonder what I was actually testing.

Hello DannySapp1127,

I'm assuming that you are working on the “speed of light” project described here:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p056.shtml

This experiment is a demonstration that the speed of light is equal to the frequency multiplied by the wavelength. The microwave oven generates 'light' (radio frequency waves) of a particular frequency. The distance that you measure between cooked spots in an egg white is the wavelength from the microwave oven.

The independent variable is the frequency of 'light' emitted by the oven. The dependent variable is the wavelength. In other words, the frequency was set by the scientist while the wavelength is a measured response to the frequency.

More information about independent and dependent variables is provided at this link:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... bles.shtml


I hope this helps. Please post again if you have more questions.

A. Norman