this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2026
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That makes no sense. It's the wrong frequency to cook anything.
JFC...is US STEM education really this bad? Lemmy seems to struggle between STEM and Star Trek.
The idea that microwave ovens use some specific frequency that's good for cooking is a myth.
Dielectric heating occurs over a very broad range of frequencies. What actually matters is the energy density of the EM field. A microwave oven cooks food because its putting more than 1000 watts into a small confined space, your cellphone doesn't because its transmitter is shooting less than 1 watt into the open air (where the energy density quickly diminishes by the square cube law).
I'm sorry, you know the precise frequency that would be used by a fictional/speculative 'microwave' beam emmitted from an orbiting solar array?
You... don't think that 'microwave' might be technically innacurate, but broadly colloquially understood term, to describe the broad concept?
Like maybe a 'phaser' weapon, or a 'lightsaber'?