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Mystery #2Tier 2waves / heat

How does a microwave heat your dinner without getting hot itself?

A microwave turns a cold bowl of soup piping hot in barely a minute, yet the oven walls stay cool enough to touch. There is no flame, no glowing red element, no heat you can see anywhere. So what on earth is doing the cooking?

The inside of a microwave oven with its glass turntable, and the metal mesh window in the door that keeps the waves in
Photo: Famartin · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Your guess

What's your best guess: what actually heats the food inside a microwave?

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