Your (microwaved) bacon is an antenna!

Contrary to what some say, microwaves do not cook from the inside out. The microwaves in your microwave oven have a ~12cm wavelength, which is couple hundred thousand times longer than the wavelength of visible light. 1/

Unlike visible light, microwaves penetrate about 1cm into food before they're fully absorbed (or reflected). This varies by food, but it's a good rule of thumb. 2/

For thin foods, like bacon, this means that food can heat quite fast. About 2 to 3C per second. 3/

In theory, your can microwave bacon in a couple minutes BUT, bacon is thin, salty, fatty, and often sweet. 4/

These kinds of foods tend to absorb microwaves faster and as the bacon fries and dehydrates, it only becomes better at absorbing microwaves, which is why it can go from underdone to burned in seconds. 5/

Bacon is unusual in another way: A strip is similar in length to the wavelength of the microwaves. This makes your bacon a pretty good antenna for tuning in and absorbing the microwave energy. 6/

And there are some interesting RF physics that result in the edges of the bacon antenna absorbing energy even more strongly, which can cause the edges to burn quickly. 7/

Here's a photo of bacon fried at ~500 watts for 5 minutes, versus 1150W for 2min. Notice how the edges are overcooked on the right in the full-power fried bacon on the left? That's the antenna edge effect. 8/

Learning to turn the power down on your microwave is the secret to unlocking better results from this oft-maligned appliance. 9/

If you could see the pattern of microwaves, you would see they're very uneven. If they were visible light, you'd see lots of highlight and shadows moving around as the microwave runs. 10/

Rotating the food and doing things to chop and scatter the microwaves around are things manufacturers do to try to even things out. But isn't perfect, which is why microwaves have a reputation for uneven cooking. 11/

If you learn to use the power settings on your microwave ,it will change your whole relationship with this appliance. 12/

For foods more than 1cm thick, it takes time for heat delivered by the microwaves to diffuse through the food by conduction. The food is a bottleneck because conduction in the food is slow. 13/

By turning the power down to ~200watts (usually power level 2 or 3 depending on wattage) you balance the rate that microwaves unevenly heat the surface against how quickly that heat can even out through conduction. 14/