Physics Lens

Microwave Standing Waves

In the last tutorial, we were talking about the typical wavelength of different categories of electromagnetic waves. To help us remember the typical wavelength of microwaves, I suggest that we familiarise ourselves with a popular science experiment involving stationary microwaves in an oven.

Watch the following video from 2 min 20 sec to see how the experiment is conducted and how the wavelength of microwave can be measured after determining the distance between two adjacent nodes (the wavelength will be twice that distance). Therefore, the typical wavelength of microwaves will be of the order of magnitude of several centimetres.

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