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dattallmofo_ dattallmofo_
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11 years ago
And considering light is a much higher frequency, shouldn't it take less energy for the wave to cause dielectric heat?  Meaning shouldn't light be nuking us right now?
In the EM spectrum, first comes radio, then microwave, then visible light.  And according to wikipedia, polarized molecules can be dielectrically heated by simply 'radiation', not a specific form.
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wrote...
11 years ago
Ok one statement there is wrong, radio waves do not produce dielectic heating.  This is because they have much too low a frequency.

Microwaves have an extremely high frequency and therefore do produce dielectric heating.

Light falls in the middle of these two frequencies but is still too low to produce the effect.
wrote...
11 years ago
Wow, microwaves are not high energy at all.  Microwaves and radio waves are good at making polar molecules oscillate, which does not require a lot of energy, for visible light to heat objects it needs to be absorbed well.  A lot of times a lot of it gets reflected instead, but if you leave metal out in the sun they can get very hot.  
But most things you're thinking of probably contain water, like when you heat things in the microwave, objects with water have the water molecules spin and create a lot of friction.  Water doesn't really interact with visible light.  
wrote...
11 years ago
Microwave ovens work by heating up the water content of whatever is placed inside. For example, if you put a glass of oil (like olive oil) inside the microwave, you'll find that it doesn't heat up.

It turns out that at a particular frequency, the radiation used in microwaves causes water molecules to violently vibrate, and therefore quickly heat up.

So the reason light doesn't do this to us, is because it doesn't possess the proper frequency to excite water molecules the same way microwave ovens do.
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