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#14446 01/03/01 02:48 AM
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Since we cook food in a microwave, are we microwav-ing it?


#14447 01/03/01 03:08 AM
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At home, we refer to using the microwave to cook or defrost food as "nuking" it. Very un-PC in nuclear-free NZ!



The idiot also known as Capfka ...
#14448 01/03/01 08:36 AM
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[puzzled emoticon]Yes, what else?


#14449 01/03/01 02:21 PM
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I zap food in my mirowave-- unless to annoy my children i zap it my radar-range..


#14450 01/03/01 02:26 PM
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Zap, nuke. These are the common verbs for the process. Microwave is a little more formal(ha!). I prefer mike but no one else I know uses it. Folks do seem to understand what I mean when I use it so I guess it gets at least partial credit.


#14451 01/03/01 03:39 PM
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I've never used this, but it occurs to me that irradiate is a good word to describe what one does to food in a microwave.

My mother-in-law nukes her food in the microwave. She's very proper and formal about her kitchen activities, appliances, gadgets, and terminology, and I always want to laugh when she says she's going to nuke the broccoli


#14452 01/03/01 04:23 PM
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Like Faldage, I mike my food as well. When I'm feeling particularly creative in the kitchen, I will nukrowave it (I don't believe I've ever had to spell it before - an ugly brute when you write it, but fun to say).


#14453 01/03/01 04:51 PM
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In reply to:

Irradiate



Probably not a good choice in this context. There is a process being used in the USA (don't know about elsewhere) whereby food is irradiated by radioactive isotopes or something to preserve it. Has been approved for use by the relevant govt. authority and irradiated products are on the market, althoug I've never seen them and they don't seem to be popular (no surprise emoticon).


#14454 01/03/01 07:08 PM
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More on Irradiate-- vs Nuke or Mike..

Microwaves are radio/sound waves-- very high frequence-- if you start with waves (say on the ocean) and keep making the wave smaller and smaller... you eventually would get to 60 Hz-- or middle C-- and make them smaller and smaller-- and you get to micro waves-- (which you can neither see or hear..)

Mirco wave ovens use the same range of waves as radar systems... (hence a Amana's brand of Radar Ranges-- an early term for Micro waves..)

Some one in US first notice you could "see" an object in sound waves--and before WWII there was a crude Radar system set up (the german's had a lot of Radar) but it was pretty crude and couldn't tell a flock of birds from a B52-- so lots of false alarms.

The Brits actually came up with a very much improved system using a magnatron--but by then, where deep into WWII and didn't have the resource to develop a working product on a large scale.

They pretty much gave the technology to US, in return for us actually building a good quality working radar system that could be mounted in a plane..

During the war, pilots noted that coffee(tea) stores near the radar machine got/ stayed hot (in the unheated bombers) and learned to use the radar equipment to heat coffee and meals.

Post war, the technology was used to build Microwave ovens.. I saw my first in a VA hospital in the late 1960's...
I am sure there is a web site somewhere with the names of all the engineers, and the frequency range of a Microwave oven... You could LIU if you want more than this thumb nail history..


#14455 01/03/01 07:39 PM
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I dimly remember from the early 60s (before they were the 60s) the Student Union had what they called an infrared oven that they used to heat sandwiches and the like but I think it acted more like a toaster oven. What freq range is infrared? In the Navy we used to refer to the communications ETs as DC techs because they worked with low frequencies around 5-10 MHz. Our lowest frequency radar was around 500 MHz.


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