What would happen to your eyes if you stared at magnetron from a few inches?

[Mangetout]

Ah! They’re 1920’s style death rays.

[Try2B_Comprehensive]

You should totally tell your friend about this.

With BrainPort, the device being developed by neuroscientists at Middleton, Wisc.–based Wicab, Inc. (a company co-founded by the late Back-y-Rita), visual data are collected through a small digital video camera about 1.5 centimeters in diameter that sits in the center of a pair of sunglasses worn by the user.

From the CPU, the signals are sent to the tongue via a “lollipop,” an electrode array about nine square centimeters that sits directly on the tongue. Each electrode corresponds to a set of pixels. White pixels yield a strong electrical pulse, whereas black pixels translate into no signal. Densely packed nerves at the tongue surface receive the incoming electrical signals, which feel a little like Pop Rocks or champagne bubbles to the user.

In any case, within 15 minutes of using the device, blind people can begin interpreting spatial information via the BrainPort, says William Seiple, research director at the nonprofit vision healthcare and research organization Lighthouse International. The electrodes spatially correlate with the pixels so that if the camera detects light fixtures in the middle of a dark hallway, electrical stimulations will occur along the center of the tongue.

Hopefully he doesn’t stick his tongue in front of a magnetron, too.

[CraterLayer]

Staring directly into the Sun for a few minutes would be much safer and easier. Put SPF 50 sun screen on the parts of the eyes not afflicted with floaters. Try not to blink.

[Isilder]

@engineer_comp_geek

I would expect to feel heat for a fairly short duration (maybe a second or two, tops) followed by searing pain, at which point you’d be permanently blinded with no hope of ever recovering.

This.

The laser is very very fine and aimed at the part to cauterize, and shot very fast so that the total energy is not much.

The microwave is a wide beam and will simply warm up the entire eye… with far more total energy… joules per gram… temperature…

[Machine_Elf]

@cmyk

Just throwing this out there, but sticking your head in front of a live magnetron won’t just stop at your eyes. There happens to be another important organ right behind them.

Microwaves are actually used to kill lab rats by cooking their brains, but this works well only because their heads are small. Microwaves are absorbed very well by water and fat, so they don’t penetrate very deeply; that’s why hot dogs warm up nicely in a microwave oven, but pot roasts do not.

OP’s dopy friend will feel a burning sensation in his face if he does this. If he’s lucky, the pain will become unbearable and cause him to reflexively withdraw before he does permanent damage to his vision.