# microwaves will kill you!

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaves-will-kill-you/28997>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 11, 2000, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaves-will-kill-you/28997 "2000-08-11T18:18:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\
**Post date:** [August 14, 2000, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microwaves-will-kill-you/28997/21 "2000-08-14T02:09:16Z")

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Balance wrote:

> [@](#):
>
> but which had been dropped so that the doors were askew (leaving gaps large enough to fit a finger through). With one cup of water in the cavity, none of the tests showed detectable leakage.

A convenient rule to remember is that light travels very close to a foot in a nanosecond (in a vacuum). So with a 1 GHz signal, the wavelength is one foot. At around 2.5 GHz where microwaves operate, the wavelength is around five inches. Waves don’t like to go through holes that are small compared to the wavelength. You’ll get some through, but not much.

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