(Not sure if I have the right place for this, it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything on the Columns)
It’s mentioned that the microwave that is in our kitchens is built with the resonance properties for water (and then there’s some techno stuff that proves that it doesn’t match with N^2).
What if a microwave was built to match the resonance properties of N^2?
Ohhh… If the “embarassed” smilie didn’t look like something wrong I’d use it.
This should be on the “comments on staff reports”… Sorry.
Off to CSR
Also, is there a connection between NMR and a microwave oven?
How far is the signal of a modern microwave from that of the RADAR antennas that spawned the idea? My grandma still has a Radarange.
If you strapped the magnetron out of a microwave to your Cessna, would it have RADAR jamming properties? If you hooked it to a helicopter, could you burn holes in fog?
I don’t know about the RADAR questions, but as for the resonance: The key is that water, being (to summarize) a more complicated, asymmetrical molecule, has a lot more resonances to begin with. So it’s much easier to find a water resonance, or to even stuble across a few accidentally. I imagine that one could build a nitrogen resonant heater, but it’d be more difficult: You’d have to actively look for the resonances, rather than just using the shotgun approach.
Roughly speaking the “heater” element of the microwave is called a magnetron. Essentially, its a big vacuum tube with a cathode and anode (and is, BTW, classed as a diode), but with two unique features: 1) The anode is machined in a particular way to provide a particular resonant frequency, and 2) A current carrying coil of wire is wrapped around the tube. By tweaking the electron with E & M fields as passes from the cathode to the anode, EMF are emitted of a particular area of the EM spectrum. The size of the anode cavities determines the frequency of the resultant microwave
http://www.fnrf.science.cmu.ac.th/theory/microwave/Microwave%207.html
In terms of a “radar” system, a magnetron (or klystron, or some other microwave source) along with a radiator (i.e., transmitting) antenna, collector (i.e., receiving) antenna. In the case of a single antenna, a directional coupler is used to send the outgoing energy and returning energy to the proper locations. Electronics are then used to compare the outgoing signal to the returning signal which in turn determines the distance of the object being detected. Radars can be pulsed or continuus depending on what their mission requirements are.
Hooking a “Radar Range” to your Cessna and running it during a flight would cause at least three Federal Agencies to get on your case: FCC, FAA, and the FBI. The FCC would be quite disturbed over an unlicensed, untested radiation source possibly causing problems with radar and communication. The FAA would be after you for using a device that is not certified for use in general aviation, and the FBI? Well, think about it for a few minutes.
Burning holes in fog maybe possible, but not very efficient with a microwave oven. For one thing, microwaves (oven) are not quite at resonance with H2O. The reason being is that if it was, the outer surface of the item full of moisture would absorb virtually all of it until it was “cooked out of it”, before it could penetrate more deeply. So the frequency is skewed just enough so it can penetrate deeply, and heat the object in question more evenly as a result. So you’d need a much more powerful magnetron at the correct frequency along with an efficient emitter (e.g. feed horn)) to burn a hole in fog would take a lot of energy because you would probably need to flash boil the condensate(?) in the air. The latent heat of vaporization (at ~454 cal/gram for H2O) along the inefficiencies inherent in the magnetron would make this impractical. In addition, any wind is going to fill in the hole generated anyway. Don’t expect a pilot to travel through the hole when the magnetron is on. Nobody wants the cataracts,
the sparks from fuselage, along with the spark’s EMI that jams the radio among other things.